


Slip and Fall Season

by jimmymcgools



Series: A Controlled Burn [2]
Category: Better Call Saul (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Mailroom-Era, POV Jimmy McGill, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:14:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 116,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26266324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jimmymcgools/pseuds/jimmymcgools
Summary: Sunlight pours through the office window, catching the dust in the air and tracing the edges of the woman before him. She waits contemplatively, elbows propped on the dark wood. Her nameplate saysV. Simpson, Academic Coach, but when they’d shaken hands earlier, she had asked him to call her Vera.“So it’s impossible?” Jimmy says, finally.The sequel toA Controlled Burn.
Relationships: Jimmy McGill | Saul Goodman/Kim Wexler
Series: A Controlled Burn [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1884472
Comments: 323
Kudos: 135





	1. Sandia Heights

Sunlight pours through the office window, catching the dust in the air and tracing the edges of the woman before him. She waits contemplatively, elbows propped on the dark wood. Her nameplate says _V. Simpson, Academic Coach_ , but when they’d shaken hands earlier, she had asked him to call her Vera. 

“So it’s impossible?” Jimmy says, finally. 

Vera frowns. “Not _impossible_ ,” she says carefully. Everything about her is careful: from the way her dark bob hangs just above her shoulders, to the way she shuffles through his college transcripts, laying them out at right angles on her desk. “See if you can bring up your GPA a point or two with these last few credits, and get a good enough score on your LSATs… no, not impossible.”

Shelves of mottled grey ringbinders line the peeling, peach-colored walls. On the spines, new white labels barely obscure the black writing of older stickers beneath. _Admiss. May 1988 - Apr 1989_ ; _Eval. 85 - 87._

Vera continues: “If you set your sights on something attainable, something with a later admissions deadline—April, maybe—you might be able to get into one of the smaller colleges for fall term next year.”

“Next year?” Jimmy says sharply, turning back to her. “Like, August?”

Vera offers another careful smile. “That’s right.”

Jimmy exhales, settling in his chair. It’s one of those old, fifties school chairs: metal legs and a hard wooden seat and back. He rubs his right hand over his knee and bites his lip, staring absently at the spines of the admissions folders. 

Vera clears her throat. At his returning glance, her eyes flick down to his papers again. “James,” she says, and she looks back up. “You were lucky to get late admission for summer classes. As it is, most students picked their courses more than a month ago, and the popular ones have already filled up. With night school your options are going to be even more limited. You need one more business course for the credit requirement, but otherwise I’d suggest picking something you think you can do _very_ well in. Otherwise these—” she taps his papers “—these grades, I’m sorry to say, are really not going to cut it.” 

There’s a long silence, then Jimmy says, “Right.”

Vera’s gaze softens. “I won’t lie to you, it will be a lot of work. But my brother-in-law got into the law late, and if he can do it, I’m inclined to think anyone can.” She smiles. “And you say you already think you’ll have a place at one of the firms here in town?”

Jimmy glances down at his name on the transcripts, too. He nods. 

“Well then,” Vera continues, shuffling his papers together and vanishing the seriffed _McGill_ , “I think we can make this happen. As long as you’re not afraid of hard work.”

And Jimmy thinks of cold winter mornings, of snowbanks piled against the concrete alley wall alongside Laramie Avenue. Of his father’s gloved fingers wrestling with an ice-covered lock. He thinks of opening stiff blinds so the sunrise can break through, the tall shelves casting long shadows through the air itself—darkening the dust that Jimmy was forever sweeping up off the floor and that would finally win, years later, and settle.

Vera is saying something about finding the admissions office and she’s handing him sheets of paper with course lists on them and a description of the tuition costs. Jimmy nods, watching the white sheets move in and out of the windowed sunlight as he accepts them from her. He thinks: August next year. Almost eighteen months away. And then three more years of coursework, and then the bar exam, and then— 

He doesn’t know how to tell her that his grip on this already feels so tenuous he’s worried he’ll never be fast enough, that everything precious he’s trying to hang on to will go running down the drain, off to dissolve into the distant dirt somewhere out beyond the city. 

That sitting here already feels like trying to keep water cupped in his hands. 

* * *

Jimmy pushes through the haze of graduation gowns and cigarette smoke, holding two cups of beer. He’s looking for Kim, trying to catch a glimpse of blonde between the taller bodies and the square black caps that surround him. The place smells like spilled alcohol and cigarette smoke, like sour sweat and weed. 

Loud music blares from an expensive speaker system, sending half-empty bottles of liquor trembling on the kitchen bar. Eric H. is holding court near a double fridge—it’s his house, or, Jimmy suspects, his parents’s house. He’s surrounded by other students who look just like him: the same preppy haircut, if worn a little poorer. Jimmy recognises some of them from the ceremony earlier that afternoon and pauses for a moment. It’s easier for him to see himself in these guys now than it was during the graduation, with their gowns lopsided or missing, with drinks in their hands and with dumb grins plastered on their faces. 

But Jimmy moves on, through more bodies and out the sliding door to the front deck. It’s dark but still warm, the sun only just set, and porch lights illuminate everyone on the balcony—though the party is thinner here, the music quieter. 

And there’s Kim again, finally, her graduation cap tilted back on her head, leaning against the rail. Like most of the other graduates here, her gown is black with red accents down the sleeves and front. She’s talking to an older woman, and as Jimmy watches, Kim straightens her hood slightly, adjusting it as if, in looking at the woman before her, she’s looking in a mirror. 

Her eyes shift and she spots him. “Jimmy!” she says. She takes one of the beers from him and then touches his elbow. “This is my friend, Jimmy. Jimmy, this is Professor Medina—uh, Wendy.” 

Jimmy shakes the woman’s hand. “Wendy, hey,” he says, and he glances at Kim curiously.

So Kim leans closer and says, “Sidney Poitier.”

“Aha!” Jimmy says, smiling now. “Great to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“That so?” Wendy says, her eyes twinkling. 

“Mhm,” Jimmy says. He nudges Kim with his shoulder. “Told her she’s your favourite professor yet?”

Kim smiles. “We hadn’t got to that.”

Jimmy gives a little grimace. “Oops!” 

Wendy chuckles mildly, and has a drink of her wine. “You know, I think I usually get invited to these parties as a joke—but if I show, I’m suddenly everyone’s favourite.” 

“Good deal,” Jimmy says. “Plus it must be hard to pass up that boxed wine.”

Wendy holds the glass up to him for a moment and then lowers it. “So, what do you do, Jimmy?” 

Jimmy takes a long swallow of his beer, and then he forces a smile. “I, uh—”

A loud crash sounds from somewhere inside the house—porcelain shattering. Jimmy peers in the direction of the noise. Through the screen doors and the wall of students he can see a frantic Eric H. shoving aside the crowd of red and black and then returning, carrying pieces of an enormous decorative vase from one side of the room to the other. Jimmy pretends to be more compelled by this than he really is. 

But Wendy only shares a few more words with Kim and then moves away, walking up to another group, who all greet her with wide smiles. 

“She’s kidding,” Kim says, staring after the professor. “It was definitely the extra credit that made her our favourite.” 

They lean against the balcony, looking out onto the rooftops beneath them—Albuquerque’s version of the Hollywood Hills. The suburb is nestled into the base of the Sandias and filled with beige houses and rocky landscapes and pools. Eric H.’s place has a pool out back, too, and when the noise of the party drops Jimmy can hear people back there, splashing and laughing. 

“You know…” Kim starts, and she looks to him and frowns. After a moment, she shifts, turning around to face the house again, leaning back against the railing with her elbows either side of her.

Jimmy watches her, his neck twisted. 

“…Most of these guys don’t know you from Adam,” she continues eventually, gesturing with her cup of beer at the students nearby. “Next time someone asks what you do, you could just… make it up.”

Jimmy frowns and faces forward again, staring out at the flat roofs. After a moment, he says, “Oh yeah?”

Kim chuckles beside him. “Sure. I mean, what’s cooler, you think? Doctor? Architect? Uh… zookeeper?” 

Jimmy studies Albuquerque beneath him. They’re not really up high enough to see anything, but he wonders if the dark path twisting between the golden city lights is the Rio Grande. He hears Kim shift against the balcony beside him, and then he exhales. “Maybe a bigger promotion than that, even,” he says lightly. “I’m thinking mailroom supervisor.”

Kim huffs. There’s a moment of silence, then she says, “Come on.”

The blinking red tail-light of a plane moves slowly across the night sky, and Jimmy chews his lip, watching it. A song finishes. In the quiet he can hear the low splashing of the pool. 

“All right, fair enough,” Kim murmurs, eventually. “We can do better.” She makes a humming noise. “How about a jet pilot—ooh, a deep sea explorer! You could be like Jacques Cousteau.”

Jimmy finally gives a little chuckle. “Sure, okay,” he says. He turns to face her. “Maybe one of those old timey train conductors. With the little hats.”

“Oh, I love that for you,” Kim says, tapping his shoulder with the back of her hand. “Red bandana around your neck. Reckon you know enough about trains to pull it off?’

Jimmy thinks of the breathy sound of a distant train whistle. He thinks of clambering over the tracks with Marco, picking up rocks and throwing them away to clatter along the metal. He thinks of late nights, some girl’s hand clasped in his, trying to find an empty car to sneak into. And the view from the bridges, the railyard laid out below like a tangled web, ribbons of silver. He says, “Nah.” 

Kim shrugs. She downs the rest of her beer, then waves with the empty cup. “I’m gonna get another, want one?”

Jimmy looks down at his almost full beer. He shakes his head, and Kim walks off, headed back toward one of the many kegs. He watches her twisting through the black and red gowns, her hair vibrant, until she’s swallowed up. 

There’s laughter and shouting from below as two people pretend to fight, grappling each other and scuffing dirt. A couple making out against the fence nearby don’t seem to notice, their silhouettes shifting steadily. Jimmy holds his cup by the edge of the lip, dangling it above the expanse. He swirls his beer around inside and watches the gold liquid wash in and out of the light. 

“I know you,” a female voice says near him. 

He turns. He doesn’t recognise her. She’s about his height, with severe makeup and a loose thread of hair caught over her forehead. 

“I know you,” she repeats, and she steps forward and taps him on the chest. “I totally remember you. Gonna fold any more smokes in half tonight?” 

And, of course, she’s one of Kim’s friends—or maybe not friend so much as endured classmate. Game Boy Girl, Jimmy thinks. It takes him a moment longer to remember her real name: Steph. 

At his silence, Steph just rolls her eyes. “I know how you did that one now, anyway,” she says. “That’s old news. Eric’s been using it for months.” 

Jimmy laughs lightly. “Oh has he?”

“Yeah,” Steph says blandly. She blinks and looks at something behind him for a moment, then back to his eyes. “So you got any others? Bet you could make some real cash tonight.” She smiles, a flash of white. “I can point out all the dumbasses here.”

And Jimmy feels the weight of a pair of quarters in his jacket pocket suddenly, like they’ve grown ten times their size. He slips his hand in and pinches one between this thumb and the side of his forefinger. It’s warm—body temperature. He imagines rolling it over his knuckles. 

Around him, people sway like shadows in their graduation gowns. 

“Nah,” Jimmy says quickly, looking back to Steph. He slides his hand back out of his pocket. “I’m a one trick pony.”

Steph sniffs and seems to study him, as if she’s already braced for another scam. Like she’s waiting for him to pull out a blackened hundred dollar bill and launch into his familiar spiel, or turn some whiskey into water. 

But then, behind her, Kim emerges from the house, a red cup held aloft in each hand. She moves up and steps between them. “Here,” she says, holding out a beer. “I got you a fresh one anyway.”

Jimmy stares at it until Kim gestures again, sloshing the beer. He sets his half-empty cup down on the edge of a nearby potted plant and takes the full one from her. “Thanks.”

Kim nods. She glances between him and Steph, then says, “Wanna get some air, Jimmy?”

He looks around them and frowns. 

“I mean, let’s go for a walk,” Kim says, and she waves vaguely down toward the yard. 

So Jimmy shrugs. “Okay, sure.”

Kim turns, and he nods goodbye to Steph and then follows, weaving back into the house. Kim's hood is twisted around her neck again, a shining flash of purple before him. The two of them move through the living room, passing people slumped lazily on the couches, staring forward with drinks in hands; passing the kitchen bar, the glass bottles still rattling beside the enormous speakers. 

And then out the front door. The pool curves around the side of the house here. It’s lit from below, glowing. Shimmered reflections ripple over the clay-colored walls. 

But Kim leads him toward the front yard instead, pushing through the gate and passing between the sparse groups of people who sit or lie on the ground here. The guys who were fighting earlier are perched beside each other on a retaining wall, chatting quietly.

The yard seems bigger down at this level. It feels expensive, like the house, and it’s professionally landscaped—probably in an attempt to be something other than a desert, but there’s still nothing really green. Maybe some neighborhood code against it. There’s just rocks and faded shrubs, perfectly trimmed. 

The two of them stop beside one of the large boulders. Kim holds out her drink silently, and he takes it. She slips off her heels and then climbs the boulder, twisting and sitting at the top, then pats the surface beside her and says, “Pull up a bit of rock.”

Jimmy hands the beers back over to her and then clambers up next to her and sits, his feet angled down over the uneven stone. He takes his cup and holds it loosely, his arms wrapped around his knees. Looks to the balcony where they were standing earlier. 

Somebody knocks a cup over the edge and it goes flashing down into the yard: red over white. Nobody above seems to notice. 

Kim shifts beside him, and Jimmy turns to see her nestling her beer into the rock and then taking off her graduation cap. Her hair is down, styled in waves that have slowly relaxed since this afternoon and now hang loosely above her shoulders. 

She turns the black cap over in her hands, then says, “I can’t believe I had to pay to rent this dumb hat.”

Jimmy chuckles. “Yeah. Should just get it as a trophy,” he says. “Something to keep forever.” 

“It’d make a handy little table, too,” Kim says, perching it on one knee like a second head. She gives a soft laugh and then leans back, resting on her palms, staring impassively up toward the balcony. 

People drift along the edge, shadowed. Just the shapes of figures moving to and fro, hiding and revealing the balcony lights. Indistinguishable from each other in their red and black gowns. 

Jimmy glances to Kim. Watches her watch the figures. After a long time, he says, “So who’d you be talking to if I wasn’t here?” 

She frowns. “I guess I’d have to go find Wendy again.”

“Hanging out with the professor, huh?”

Kim shrugs. The wind lifts up and blows a strand of hair over her face, and she tucks it back behind her ear. Her face is impassive again. Still. 

“I mean—who’d you be with if I’d never come here at all?” Jimmy presses. “To Albuquerque. If I’d never…” 

Kim looks sideways at him. “If you’d never taken a shit through your stepdad’s sunroof?”

“He wasn’t my stepdad,” Jimmy says, and then he laughs quietly. “But yeah. If I hadn’t done that. If I was still living large back in Cicero, who’d you be talking to?”

Kim doesn’t react for a while, then she just shakes her head. 

“I mean, come on,” Jimmy says, and he sits up a little straighter, peering around at the people gathered in the yard. After a moment, he points. “Maybe that guy? Norman Bates over there with the collared sweater?” And beside him, a shorter man wearing thick glasses. “Or hey, Rick Moranis. You two could nerd out together, that’d be cute.”

Kim makes a soft sound, not quite a laugh. 

“Nice library date, home by nine.” He twists so he’s facing her. “Hell, Kim, you were here for years before I showed up. You didn’t make any friends?”

Kim’s eyes narrow. She folds her lips inward, then gestures to him. “What about you? Where else’d you be, hanging out with Chuck?” His brother’s name arrives sharply, clearly sharper than she intended, because she flinches. She’s silent for a time, then sighs. “What’s up, Jimmy? Do you want to go?”

He shrugs. “Nah. Just thinking.”

There’s a beat, and then she says, “Okay.”

He looks toward the fence. The couple that he saw from the balcony earlier are gone now. A handful of crushed plastic cups litter the dirt in their place. He sips his beer, and then turns back to Kim. And softer: “Well, you never have to talk to these guys now anyway, right?” He brings his leg up beneath him so he can face her better. “Law school, check! Cross that off your list. So what’s next?”

Kim closes her eyes. She lets out a long breath, then says wistfully, “Sleep.”

Jimmy laughs, but when she doesn't elaborate, he adds, “I mean, come to Albuquerque, you know…” He waves a hand in a spiral, like a wheel turning. “All that jazz. What’s next?”

Kim, eyes still closed, pauses before she says, “The bar exam.”

“Right, ‘course,” Jimmy says. “That old thing.” 

Kim laughs quietly and opens her eyes. “Nights and evenings studying. Big change, huh?”

“Yeah, big change.” Jimmy watches her, her chest rising and falling as she stares upward at the house. A furrowed line appears in the middle of her forehead. 

She doesn’t ask what’s next for him. He doesn’t really expect her to. 

But he reaches over and takes the graduation cap from her knee anyway. It’s heavier than he thought it would be, and he runs his thumb and forefinger down the tassel, untangling some of the twisted threads. How much of a head start do these stupid cords represent? he wonders. Eighteen months and three years? The careful face of Vera Simpson, Academic Coach, frowns at him in his mind. 

So he leans forward and settles it back onto Kim’s head instead. She raises her eyebrows questioningly. 

“You gotta get your money’s worth out of that, right?” he says, straightening it and then letting go. 

Kim nods slowly, face shadowed. 

“Suits you,” he says. He nudges her with his knee until she meets his gaze, and then he inclines his head solemnly. “Hey. You did it.”

And Kim smiles. Her eyes are bright in the darkness. “Yeah,” she says. “I did it.”

Jimmy smiles back. The noise drops and he can hear the splashing from the pool, distant and low. 

* * *

At lunch on Monday, they have a little celebration in the breakroom. It’s a familiar experience for Jimmy now: chips and soda and a sheet cake divided up onto paper plates. _Congratulations, Kim!_ it had said in colorful frosting, and Jimmy now holds part of the blue ‘K’. 

Kim herself wears a pointed party hat that looks like it was designed for a child. The elastic is tight around her chin, pinching the skin, but she hasn’t taken it off yet. 

“Now, I know she’s too ashamed to tell you she couldn’t have done it without me,” Henry says, eyes crinkling, and Kim swats at him. He chuckles. “They always are. No love for the old guy in the mailroom. But who taught you about the auto-stapling, huh?”

Kim chuckles. “All right, all right.”

“That must’ve saved at least ten minutes of your life, if you add it all up,” Henry adds. 

“Thank you Henry,” Kim says warmly, holding up her cup of soda. 

Henry smiles, and taps his own cup against hers. 

There’s a light knock at the door. Howard stands in the threshold, a broad smile on his face. “Kim!” he says. “Our newest graduate.” He strides forward into the breakroom, his hand extended like the bow of a ship cutting through the water. “I always knew you had it in you,” he says, shaking her hand vigorously. “The right support from HHM, and here you are! Well done.”

Kim pauses for a moment then smiles. “Thank you, Howard.”

“Of course,” Howard says, already looking away. He nods to the table. “Is that cake?”

“Yeah, devil’s food,” Kim says.

“Devil’s food?” Howard repeats, eyebrows up near his hairline. Burt slides a piece onto a plate and holds it out, and Howard takes it. He pops a bite into his mouth and chews for a moment, then nods sharply. “Very good.”

Kim pulls the party hat off her head. There’s an angry red line beneath her chin from the elastic.

Howard eats another forkful of cake, chewing efficiently, then sets his plate down. “So, Kim. You’ll be sitting the bar exam in July?”

“That’s right,” Kim says. “Well—I’ll do my best, anyway.”

“Of course,” Howard says. “And let’s get you through it on that first attempt.” He gives a self-conscious little smile, almost embarrassed. “Though it’s not uncommon to need more than one.” An almost unnoticeable pause, before: “But not you, I’m sure.”

Kim glances at Jimmy, her eyes twinkling as they meet his, then she looks away. “Thanks, Howard,” she says again. 

“Right, well,” Howard says. He gives another broad grin, pauses for a moment, then extends his hand a second time. Kim shakes it, and he nods to the rest of them. “Good to see you all. Congratulations, Kim. Enjoy the rest of your devil food.”

Jimmy watches him leave, the expensive blue suit moving fluidly with his long strides. As Howard disappears into the landing, Jimmy chuckles, and turns back to the others. “All that from a guy who didn’t even teach you about auto-stapling.”

Kim snorts, smiling warmly. 

“And he didn’t finish his cake, either,” Burt adds. 

“He didn’t finish his _cake!_ ” Jimmy says, shooting Kim a scandalised look.

“Yes, well,” Kim says, in a tonal imitation of Howard Hamlin that makes Jimmy’s grin grow even wider. “That was your mistake, Jimmy. Devil’s food? Rookie move. You should’ve got me a torte.”

Jimmy stares at her blankly and says, “Tort?” 

Kim laughs brightly. “T-o-r-t-e.” She pauses, then adds, “It’s a type of cake, you dummy.”

Jimmy makes a pained noise, clutching his chest, and he turns to Burt. “Lawyers, right?” he says. “Can’t understand a word of the legalese that comes outta their mouths, and then they make fun of you for it!” 

Burt shakes his head. “Not cool, Kim,” he says. A smile dawns on his face. “Hey—what do you get if you put a chameleon and a lawyer in the same room?”

Jimmy raises his eyebrows expectantly, looking around at the others. 

“A cold-blooded creep and no sign of the chameleon!” Burt says—and he laughs delightedly, louder than anyone else, the sound echoing through the basement. He cuts himself another piece of cake and then forks some into his mouth, still grinning. 

“Go on then Burt, let’s hear some more,” Kim says, and she beckons toward herself. “I can take it.”

“All right,” Burt says, swallowing the cake. He looks around, eyes tracking in thought, then he grins again. “Okay, so what happens if you cross a lawyer with a stop sign…?”

* * *

Later that night, Jimmy steps off the bus into the warm evening air of the road outside the Central New Mexico Community College. It’s buzzing with traffic, and heavy with the smell of gas and the lingering acidic scent of melting asphalt. He’s made it here with time to spare, but he really needs to get a car—though now that he’s looking down the barrel of years of school fees he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to afford it. Gonna have to be much more careful with his mailroom money.

The campus is set a long way back from the road, behind large parking lots that are mostly empty. Jimmy strolls alongside them, watching students filter in and out of cars. It almost feels more like a mall than a college—except for the buildings: square, brutal things that grow larger as he approaches. 

He has a map in his pocket from the admissions packet that arrived at his apartment a couple of weeks ago and that he’s kept hidden in his kitchen cupboard ever since. He reaches the first building and pulls out the map, unfolds it. Checks off the classroom number one more time, then looks up. The main building, where a month ago he’d visited with the academic coach, rises before him. It looks like a tower of enormous, flat bricks, offset from each other. Like a segment removed from a much bigger wall, somehow futuristic and ancient at the same time. 

The entrance doors swing open easily. There’s a flight of steps over to his right, and Jimmy climbs them, his shoes squeaking on the shiny tiles, until he reaches the third floor. 

The air is musty and recycled-smelling, and there’s no outside windows, just door after door down a narrow corridor. He moves along it, counting the numbers on the rooms. The carpet feels uneven in places, as if the building's had extra wings clumsily added to it over time. The wood beneath the fabric creaks as he steps over the joined sections.

Then he sees it: a flat piece of metal embossed with the numbers _318._ He closes the distance to it. Slows to a stop. Through a glass window in the door: chairs arranged around a long table, and nobody else, not yet. 

He checks his watch: _5:41._ Twenty minutes to go. He runs his fingers through his hair and runs his tongue over his teeth. 

He wonders if they’re gonna get stickers to put on their chests. _Hi, my name is…_

Voices rise behind him, and a pair of students pass, moving confidently down the hallway. They’re having a loud but friendly argument about some obscure fact, and he watches them until they turn away, heading into a different classroom. 

Jimmy glances down at himself. He’s taken off his tie—shoved it inside the backpack that Kim had raised a curious eyebrow at that morning—but other than that, he’s still in his mailroom get up: a short sleeved shirt tucked into his slacks. He thinks about the _Fletch!_ tee folded in his dresser. The thick-rimmed glasses. 

He presses the button on his watch. 

The numbers flash up: _5:43_ , red and bright. 

He stares at them glowing on the golden face until they vanish, and then he thumbs the button again— _5:43…_ and now the time seems more like a countdown, so he finishes it himself, _two, one_ , and opens the door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and we're back!! i've missed you guys ♥️
> 
> and also you should definitely follow along with the [slip and fall season playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7INW6nmELupiV022ehNvM0?si=7RCVlew4Qqm9619Edl4L4w) made by [@queenofnots](https://queenofnots.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, who will be updating as the story progresses!


	2. Why Are You Here?

The words are already written on the whiteboard when Jimmy arrives: _Why are you here?_

He double checks the number on the open door behind him, then looks back to the classroom. It’s smaller than the dusty upstairs room where his first business class had been held yesterday, but brighter and airier, inside one of the newer buildings. And an even longer walk from the bus stop—he’d had to pass a humming bar to get here, with people drinking and laughing out front. 

There’s two students waiting in the classroom already, sat on opposite sides of a u-shaped arrangement of desks. Jimmy settles a few spaces down from one of them—a skinny, teenaged boy with long hair pulled back in a ponytail. He’s wearing an old Cedar Point sweatshirt, his thumbs stuck through holes in the sleeves. The guy opposite is a little older: heavyset with dark eyebrows, like Marlon Brando in _On the Waterfront_. 

Jimmy unzips his backpack and pulls out his notepad, then looks up at the words on the board again. He leans over to the ponytailed kid and says, “This is public speaking, right?”

The kid stares back at him and shrugs. “Hope so,” he says, after a moment. 

A couple more students enter, closer to Jimmy’s age, two women. They sit down on either side of the horseshoe of desks, each leaving a space or two free as a buffer as well.

After a while, the woman on Jimmy’s side, who has bangs and smudged, wire-framed glasses, leans closer to him and asks, “This is public speaking, right?”

Jimmy chuckles. He shares a glance with the kid, then says, “Sure hope so.”

The woman laughs lightly, and the group falls back into silence. The Brando-looking guy clicks his pen. 

Jimmy’s business class yesterday had filled up quickly, the room becoming crowded with quiet students who were all determined to never fill the long spaces left by the balding professor—though he’d kept trying to wring the answers out of them all the same. 

This class, a public speaking course that the advisor had said Jimmy could cross-credit and that he’s hoping he can breeze through, feels more like a weekend detention. Like a John Hughes movie, and the five of them are the damn Breakfast Club. Jimmy smiles to himself, looking around at everyone, figuring out who they each are—and then he glances down at his mailroom button-up and slacks and his smile drops. Fuck. Anthony Michael Hall. 

He imagines the sound of laughter, a laughter that reminds him suspiciously of Marco—cackling over a beer at the sight of Jimmy with a tucked-in shirt and trimmed hair. _Man, Jimmy_ , this imaginary Marco says, _I know you said you were gonna go live with Chuck, but I didn’t realise you were gonna turn into him._

Jimmy flips the cover back on his notepad quickly—one of the yellow legal pads he took from the storeroom at HHM. He writes “Why are you here?” at the top and underlines it three times, then sets his pen down. There’s a smudge of ink on his palm from fixing a broken copy machine earlier, and he rubs at it with his thumb idly.

Another woman enters the room, but she doesn’t sit at the horseshoe of desks. Instead, she walks to the wall opposite the door and turns a small, white crank, opening a set of high windows. 

“That’s better,” she says, and she moves to the front of the room. She scans them, clearly taking in the way they’re all spaced out among the desks, then she frowns. “What’s this? Everyone budge up close.” She waves a hand toward herself. “You’re not allowed to be shy in here, come on.”

She beckons her hand again. Jimmy picks up his notepad and bag and shifts down the empty desks so he’s right beside the kid with the ponytail, and everyone else similarly closes the other gaps. Clustered together, the group feels even smaller. 

The woman continues speaking, introducing the class and herself—public speaking, Professor Reiss. She’s short and unassuming but speaks commandingly, and Jimmy finds himself a lot more compelled by her lesson than he was during yesterday’s business class. He writes down some notes, short bullet points about the history of public speaking, until eventually Reiss turns, and gestures at the writing on the board. 

“So— _Why are you here_?” she reads, and then she faces them again. She pauses a moment but doesn’t seem to expect an answer because she continues: “We’re going to start this class by learning more about each other. You might think of public speaking less as a conversation between two people, but everything is an exchange.” She waves a hand between herself and the five of them. “For example, I can tell from your expressions that I’ve been talking a little too long already. So I think it’s time you introduced yourselves.” 

At her prompting, the ponytailed kid grunts out his name: Ellis. He starts droning through an answer to the question on the board, too, but then Reiss holds up her hand. 

“That’s okay, Ellis,” she says. “That’s your first assignment, don’t spoil it.” She points to Jimmy, but when he introduces himself, she repeats his name: “Jimmy? Short for James?” 

He nods. 

She laces her fingers over her stomach. “Do you ever go by James?”

He thinks of that imaginary Marco again, scoffing at the thought of James McGill in college classes with a nine to five job. Calling over Merna to tell her the crazy shit he just heard. 

At his silence, Reiss continues, “Names are important things. We’re going to talk a lot about _other_ words over the next few weeks, but names, appearances, the way you carry yourself…” She snaps her fingers. “It all adds up before you even open your mouth. James is stronger. You otherwise seem professional, very clean cut.” 

And there’s Marco again, pissing himself. Jimmy wonders if he’s really lost that hungry look he used to see in the hotel mirror, that back-alley edge in the corner of his eyes. He lets himself study Reiss for a moment, watching her as if across a smoky bar with Marco beside him. Her turtleneck under her oversized blazer. She’s not actually that old—easily younger than Chuck—and as he examines her, her lips twitch. He thinks that maybe she hasn’t been a professor for very long after all. 

“Or maybe not,” she says quietly, as if seeing him anew. 

“I think I’ll stick with Jimmy,” he says.

And he turns to the glasses-wearing woman beside him: Sam Hernandez, and this time Reiss doesn’t ask what ‘Sam’ is short for. The introductions move around the u-shape, to the other woman and the Brando-type—who, now that they’re right beside each other, are a study in contrasts. She’s in every way his opposite: tall and willowy, her face open and kind. Even her name, which she offers in full (“Yvonne Chaston,” she says, softly) while he gives his simply as Joe. 

And then Reiss starts talking again, describing what’s coming up in the class. Her precise and careful words that land with force without sounding rehearsed, though Jimmy thinks they must be. As she starts in on a colorful anecdote, he lowers his pen and stares outside, the thick glass warping the darkening world beyond, adding curling tails to the lampposts in the nearby quad, to the yellow headlights on the freeway. 

He understands now why Reiss opened the windows earlier, because as the sun goes down and it grows dark outside, he starts to feel closed off from the world—isolated in this room where he’s James McGill, clean-cut professional, who writes down things like _specific-purpose statement_ and _central idea_ with a straight face as if he couldn’t already sell water to a drowning man. 

* * *

Jimmy frowns, studying the man before him assessingly. Ageing features, well-worn clothes. Hooded, almost dog-like eyes. Jimmy casts his eyes down and then up one more time, taking in the ringless finger on his right hand, taking in the ink-stained forefinger, the patient smile. “Okay, I can see it,” he says, finally. 

“Well, thank you, Jimmy,” Henry says softly. “I think the whole promotion was hinging on your reaction.”

Jimmy raises his eyebrows and makes a little face as if to say, Wanna bet? 

Henry chuckles. “Okay, okay. I’m very grateful. And I promise to be around more than the old guy.” 

“New mailroom boss, huh?” Burt adds, folding his arms and leaning back against the table. “And that makes me second in command, right? Seniority?” 

“What about me?” Kim says, but she’s smiling. 

Burt waves a hand. “Prff, you’ve already got one foot out the door.” 

Kim shakes her head solemnly. “I could never leave this place.”

“Not that I’m accusing you of lying, but with our numbers dwindling like this…” Henry says, and he checks his watch, an elegant old thing on a leather band, then looks back up. “Burt, I’m sorry in advance.”

Burt looks nonplussed. 

Henry grins. “They should be down any minute.” 

And then, right on cue—and Jimmy thinks, yeah, of course the trains already run on time in Henry’s mailroom—voices emerge from the landing, a young hesitant one and then, in response, his brother’s articulate one. 

“…like to think of it as the beating heart of any law firm,” Chuck says, and he steps through into the breakroom, then looks back out through the doorway. “Ernesto? In here, please.” 

The kid who steps through is tall and nervous looking, in a sharply-ironed button-up and thick, square glasses. “Hello,” he says, after a moment. 

“Everyone, this is Ernesto Miller,” Chuck says, gesturing. “He’s just graduated from Atrisco Heritage, and he submitted a very persuasive essay for our summer internship program.” His chest swells, and he gives a small smile then says, “I’ll leave you to get introduced. Welcome to the team.”

“Thank you, Mr. McGill,” Ernesto says softly, shaking Chuck’s offered hand. 

“Of course,” Chuck says. He looks between them all, nods to Jimmy, and then leaves the breakroom. 

“Welcome, welcome,” Henry says, and he shakes hands with the kid, too. “Good to see you again. Now, the rest of us. Over there is Kim, and beside her is Jimmy, and if he looks familiar that’s because it’s his big brother’s name on the big sign out front—he’s a McGill as well.” 

Jimmy offers his hand and Ernesto shakes it. Jimmy’s eyes are drawn to his tie; it has little seahorses on it. “Nice one,” Jimmy says, indicating it.

The kid looks down and smiles. “Thank you,” he says. “I like animals.” 

“You gotta tell me where you bought it, okay?” Jimmy adds. 

“Okay.” 

“Great to meet you, Ernesto,” Kim says, holding out her hand next. 

Ernesto smiles hesitantly. “Uh, people usually just call me Ernie.” 

“Ernie?” Jimmy repeats sombrely, eyebrows raising, and then he catches Kim’s eye—and the two of them burst immediately into warm laughter. 

A moment later, Burt clicks too, and groans loudly. 

“And this is—well, this is Burt,” Henry says, indicating the man.

A genuine smile breaks across Ernie's face. “No way!” Ernie says. “You’re joking, right?”

Burt slowly shakes his head, eyes wide. “Not joking.” 

“I guess you’ll have to be best friends,” Henry says, looking between them. 

“He’s right, no avoiding it,” Kim adds. 

Burt covers his face with his hand. “How could this happen to me?” he says, voice muffled. 

“Buck up,” Henry says, clapping him on the shoulder. “Why don’t you get started by helping me show him the ropes?” he says, and he leads them both out of the breakroom. Ernie holds up a hand in farewell as he leaves, eyes skittering off Jimmy’s as if scared to stare at anyone for too long. 

Jimmy glances over to Kim and smiles. “I look that nervous my first day?” 

“Oh, much worse,” Kim says, rinsing her mug out in the sink, and then they follow the others out into the mailroom. “Seemed like any loud noise would spook you. And you always had one eye on the exit, just trained on the glowing red sign, in case you needed to make a run for it.” 

“Sounds attractive,” Jimmy murmurs, and Kim snorts. They get to work beside each other, flicking on copy machines and running down the list of memos that have arrived in the in-tray since last night. 

Later that afternoon, as he and Kim are sorting mail mindlessly, passing packages between themselves to dump into different trays for the different floors, he hears the telltale whirr of a misfeed and looks out at the mailroom floor. Ernie is standing beside a machine with his hands outstretched, waving them slightly as if he can unjam it magically. Henry comes over to calmly help. 

“Adorable,” Jimmy says, turning to Kim.

Kim glances over at Ernie and back. “Yeah,” she says, “but just you wait. It’s hazing time.” 

“There’s hazing?” Jimmy asks, raising his eyebrows. 

Kim waves a dismissive hand at him. “You got a bye. Boss’s brother.” 

“I coulda taken it,” he says, shaking his head. 

“I mean, we know that _now_ ,” Kim says, and she gives him a wry smile. “We’ll hang your underwear from the flagpole next time, okay?”

“Hmm,” Jimmy says, and he pretends to think for a moment, then says, “Okay.” He takes a stack of envelopes from her and files them into their cubbyholes, then turns back. “You off to the library again later?” 

Kim nods slowly. “So much for graduating. Half my class are holed up in there, you know.” 

“Say hi to them for me?” 

Kim chuckles. She sorts through a few more parcels, hands over a couple, then looks at him. “You end up trying that new Thai place last night?”

“Nah,” Jimmy says. He flicks through the letters, reading names— _Howard Hamlin, Howard Hamlin, Carl Vernon, Howard Hamlin_ —then hums to himself. “Maybe tonight. Go on an adventure.” He glances up at her. “I’ll let you know.” 

“Okay,” Kim says quietly. She pauses. “I’ll call you later then, maybe?” 

Jimmy shrugs. “Sure.” 

Kim nods. She tucks the last of the letters away in their right cubbyholes, then turns to head out, brushing past him and moving toward the door. 

“Hey,” Jimmy says. 

She turns back. Today, her blue cardigan almost perfectly matches the accents on the walls behind her. Her earrings are small hoops, points of gold that shine under the harsh fluorescent lights. 

He shrugs. “Call sooner if you need a rescue, all right?” He waves a vague, all-encompassing hand. “I’ll come over and burn the whole place to the ground.” 

Kim smiles, and the tired corners of her eyes crinkle back to life. “Deal.” 

* * *

The next morning, Jimmy sits on the bus, his head tipped back against the seat. It’s hot weather already, the air-con barely cutting through it. Sleep tugs at him insistently, like sinking into warm water. 

In his backpack: the heavy textbook for his public speaking class and the yellow legal pad whose empty ruled lines had haunted Jimmy last night as he sat at his tiny kitchen table, doodling in the margins or tracing over the letters again one by one: _Why are you here?_

Nothing he could think of to write beneath it had seemed good enough. 

And Kim hadn’t called him after all, but he’d barely expected her to. Part of him was glad of it, as he sat there with his head propped up, forcing his eyes to keep moving over his business class readings, trying to remember what Kim’s pages of notes usually looked like. He was sure _she_ managed to find more than one sentence to write down per page, that she could fill sheet after sheet with precise records of everything, bullet points of all the most important bits.

He doesn’t know how to tell what’s most important. Back at DuPage, with Lisa and his other two roommates crammed inside that tiny two room apartment, hiding from the landlord, Jimmy had never even opened a textbook. He’d bragged to anyone who’d listen that he didn’t need to, that he could just out-bullshit the professor on the final exam. 

It’s not hard to imagine the dry look that’d appear on Kim’s face if he ever told her that. 

The bus slows, and a few people drift on board. Jimmy shifts over to let an elderly man sit beside him and then stares out the window. 

They pass a construction site, rows of new houses growing out of the ground like pale skeletons waiting for flesh. Every week it seems like there’s something new being built along this route: earthmovers gathering along the road like migrating animals, ready to level another empty lot and eventually fill it with more restaurants or buildings in the same familiar style as the rest of Albuquerque. 

It’s a few minutes’s walk from the bus stop to Hamlin, Hamlin and McGill, and today Jimmy’s shirt is sticking to his shoulders by the time he steps inside the cool, dark lobby, where Brenda is setting up at the reception desk, a cup of coffee clasped in her hands, the computer before her booting up in moving lines of text. 

The elevator doors open with a trill and Chuck steps out. He spots Jimmy and holds up a hand in greeting then walks over. 

“Hey, Chuck,” Jimmy says. He swipes his bangs back from his forehead—his hair’s damp with sweat. “You get in early today?”

Chuck makes a noise of agreement. “The Cordero case is heating up. Listen, I’m glad I ran into you. Amendola sent over some aged steaks last week as a congratulations, so Rebecca and I are throwing a little dinner party tonight.”

Jimmy pauses for a moment, and then realises the implication. “Tonight?” he repeats. 

“Mmm,” Chuck says. “Should we say seven? It can’t be any earlier, Howard has a late meeting.”

“Seven?”

“Wonderful,” Chuck says, and he starts to move away, but— 

“I have plans,” Jimmy says. In the silence that follows he knows he should elaborate but he can’t think of anything else to say, so eventually he just repeats: “I have plans.”

Chuck finally nods, and he looks at Jimmy blankly. “Some other time, then.”

“Sure,” Jimmy says lightly. 

Chuck moves on without saying anything further, heading down one of the hallways on the first floor and vanishing around the corner. 

And Jimmy imagines a dinner party filled with people like Chuck who could actually answer the question that still waits unanswered at the top of his legal pad—answer with well thought-out arguments and supporting statements and mountains of evidence and case law. 

And if not, just an all-knowing look, like the one Chuck had given every time he’d left again for college or a clerkship and Jimmy had asked why. A look that had always seemed to say, Because there’s no other place I could be. 

* * *

“Nothing from the vending machine today?” Kim asks, as Jimmy sits down at the breakroom table beside her and clears a spot for himself among her towers of notes. 

Jimmy finishes re-stacking some of her textbooks and then peers inside his box of leftover Thai food. “Nah,” he says. He pokes around with a fork then looks up at her. “Gotta start penny pinching, finally get a car, you know?” 

“I did wonder about that tragic sandwich yesterday,” Kim says, eyes twinkling. 

Jimmy chuckles, and then he gestures with the box of pad thai. “Hey, the new place is pretty decent, though.”

“So the adventure paid off?”

Jimmy forks up a mouthful of noodles and then nods. “Big time,” he says, words muffled. 

Kim nods idly, running her pen along her notes. He watches her for a while, the ballpoint hovering just above the scrawled words, and then it slows. Kim sighs. She slowly lowers her head down onto the table and groans. 

Jimmy laughs gently, watching the rise and fall of her breathing. Watching the waves of blonde hair that spill from her half-ponytail, splitting in two over the back of her neck. He reaches out and rests his hand in the gap. It’s a ball of tension, tight muscles pulling down to her shoulders. He tucks his hand under the soft hair and the back collar of her shirt and then massages gently, pressing the pads of his fingers and thumb into her skin. 

Kim exhales, and he feels it beneath his palm. 

“Gonna be worth it in the end, right?” he says quietly. 

She makes a muffled noise. 

“Big shot lawyer, all the money and vending machine food you want,” he says. “Sounds pretty cushy. Otherwise, like, why are you here?”

“Right,” Kim grunts. 

He smooths his hand over her neck one more time and then pulls it back. “For real, though. How would you answer that?” He waits a moment, then repeats it. “Why are you here?”

Kim looks up at him, bleary-eyed. “In the breakroom?”

Jimmy chuckles. “Sure. Breakroom, HHM, Albuquerque. Whatever.” 

She studies him for a moment. “You know why I’m here, Jimmy.”

“Do I?” Jimmy says. There’s a drawn out silence. He thinks about saying, I know you needed to get away. I know you needed to escape from something you won’t tell me about, some terrible something that’s lurking there every time you mention Red Cloud—but you still won’t actually _talk to me—_

“To be a lawyer,” Kim says, cutting into his thoughts. “To help people.”

“Sure,” Jimmy says. “But is that why you’re _here_?”

Kim gives a little half laugh. She shakes her head at him and looks again to her notes, face pinching in concentration again. 

“I dunno,” Jimmy says, shifting closer, and she looks back up at him. He smiles. “I mean, it’s definitely not for the coffee, right?”

And Kim returns the smile, face softening. “Yeah,” she says lightly, staring over at her half empty cup. “Is it my imagination, or is that getting worse?” 

“I think they’ve realised they can start mixing in dirt and none of us will notice,” Jimmy says. He pushes his chair back and walks over to the coffee machine, pulling out the pot and sniffing it and then dumping what’s left into the sink. He fishes for a new filter and then scoops fresh coffee into the machine and sets it brewing. Leans back against the counter and watches Kim’s pen resume its careful tracing of her notes. 

As Jimmy waits for the coffee to brew, Ernie appears in the doorway hesitantly, as if worried to cross the threshold. Jimmy beckons for him to sit, and he does at the far end of the table. His tie, which has little dolphins on it today, is splotched with blue ink, and when Jimmy offers him a coffee his eyes light up. 

“Long day, huh?” Jimmy says, and he pours three cups then hands them around. “You’ll get used to it.”

Ernie adds creamer to his coffee and takes a sip. The three of them sit in silence, Jimmy poking at his congealed pad thai, Ernie resting his chin on his hand, and Kim reading over her notes, her lips mouthing around the words. 

After a while, her eyes drift closed, and her hand stills. 

Jimmy lets her stay like that for a moment, her eyelids flickering, and then he sighs and touches her foot with his under the table. She snaps her eyes open again, and without looking at him she gets back to it, her pen again tracing invisible threads over the page. 

* * *

Later, he stands in the parking garage, the air cool and soft on his bare arms. In front of him, Kim is leaning against the side of her car, the driver’s door open beside her, her briefcase and textbooks piled on the passenger seat. Her eyes are closed—losing the battle they’ve been fighting since lunch. If it weren’t for the tension in her face and shoulders, Jimmy could almost think she was asleep. 

He takes the cigarette that hangs from her fingers. She doesn’t react.

Jimmy takes a long drag and exhales. Shakes his sleeve back from his wrist and checks his watch. 

He can stay another five minutes and still make it to class on time. 

Kim breathes out slowly. She looks like a puppet with its strings cut, and he remembers his question to her earlier and wonders if it’s really worth it after all. All the late nights and early mornings and skipped meals and later nights and earlier mornings and more skipped meals… 

Finally, her eyes open again. 

He holds the cigarette back out but she doesn’t take it. “You good?” he asks, after a moment. 

She nods. 

“Library?”

Another nod, though this one falters halfway through. She stares off into nothing, and he shifts, twisting around and leaning against the car beside her, looking out in the same direction. 

He can almost feel the turn of her thoughts in the air between them. Little whirling tornadoes in the dim garage. He takes another drag on the cigarette, scratchy on the back of his throat, then exhales.

Kim tips her head sideways onto his shoulder. He thinks of an old pattern they could fall into—him offering to take her for a drink, and Kim resisting, and then relenting, getting a few hours’s break from the relentless tumble of law books. A few hours of laughter and dumb jokes. 

But instead Jimmy looks at his watch again. Shit. “Kim—I gotta go.”

She lifts her head up and looks over at him. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, standing. Another look at his watch. Even if he leaves right now, he might not make it, and there’s nowhere to hide in that Breakfast Club classroom of five students. No way to sneak in and pretend he’s been there the whole time. 

“You got something on?” Kim asks, raising an eyebrow. 

And Jimmy ignores the wounding flash of heat he feels at the question. “Yeah,” he says quickly. “Uh, having dinner with Chuck. He got some fancy steaks or something, wants to share ‘em round.” There’s a pause, and then he adds, “I don’t wanna be late.” 

“Okay,” Kim says, eyes crinkling. “Enjoy.”

He nods. Hands her back the cigarette and then, with a glance to the empty landing, leans forward and kisses her quickly. “Yeah,” he says again, as he pulls back. “Bye?” 

Kim nods, smiling softly. “Bye,” she murmurs, and her eyes drift closed again. 

He smiles back, even though she can’t see it, and heads for the bank of elevators. One opens as soon as he thumbs the call button, the familiar five musical notes echoing in the landing. He steps inside, the cab bouncing a little beneath his feet.

The doors close over his view of Kim silhouetted against her car, her head tipped downward, strings cut.

* * *

On the bus to the community college, he sits with his forehead against the window, feeling the vibrations drift like static through his skull.

The evening sky is lit up with pink, and they pass empty lots and wide roads that all seem to glow with that strange, peach-like hue. The skeletal ribs of new buildings rise from the dark ground, tall machines and cranes folded above them, lights blinking green against the reddening sky. 

And Jimmy thinks that in a couple of hours he might know more about the strangers in his public speaking class than he does about Kim Wexler. They might offer more than her easy, “You know why I’m here, Jimmy”—said as if she can skip really telling him the truth about herself, somehow. Like if she waits long enough he’ll eventually just know, and she’ll never have to say whatever it is out loud. 

In his backpack: the piece of paper with an unanswered question underlined at the top. On the yellow lines beneath it, the same name crossed out over and over, and then, weakly, _My brother_ , and in a square at the bottom, in mock seriffed letters like on a business card: _James M. McGill, Esq._


	3. And Then Sleep...

“What about this?” Jimmy asks, pulling a plaid blazer with enormous shoulder pads off the rack and holding it up to Kim. He gestures, letting it wave on the hanger. “This is pretty classy.” 

Kim glances over to him from the aisle and snorts. “What am I, a Heather?” 

“Hmm, okay,” Jimmy says, and he slips it back. He stifles a yawn behind his hand, then adds, “Just saying, you’re basically a big shot lawyer now.” And then, lighter: “You could up your game a bit.”

“Yeah, and _Walmart_ is the place to do that,” Kim says dryly.

Jimmy shrugs. “You never know where fashion’s gonna strike next.”

“Well, I’ll try to keep vigilant,” Kim says easily, and she moves on.

Jimmy follows, stopping briefly to pluck at a bright green shirtsleeve, then a canary yellow one, before emerging from the sea of clothing racks behind her. The fluorescent lights vanish into the distance, marking out the depths of the store like a runway, and he brushes past the other shoppers and tall displays until he catches up with Kim. 

She’s pushing her cart determinedly. One of the wheels twitches on its axle, wobbling as she follows aisles of linen and towels into the bathroom section. She stops at a shelf of shower curtains, shiny and colorful in their plastic packages. 

Jimmy picks up one with red zigzags, then sets it back down. “I still don’t see why it’s such a big deal, anyway,” he says. He turns to her and wiggles his eyebrows.

Kim just shakes her head, lips lifting a little. “I already caught her going through some of my crim law notes,” she says, after a moment. “I don’t think Ellen believes in boundaries.”

“Must’ve made for some dry snooping.”

Kim laughs lightly. “She’s a real gunner. Thinks she knows more about the bar exam than I do, and she’s a 2L.” 

“Hah,” Jimmy says. “You sure can pick ‘em, huh?”

“Beggars, choosers…” Kim says quietly. She moves a little further down the aisle, studying the shower curtains. 

He trails after her, tapping a finger over the plastic packages. “What kind of monster takes a shower curtain with them when they move out, anyway?” 

Kim makes a muffled noise of disgust. Another few steps down the row. She picks up a striped blue shower curtain, then sets it back down. Frowns. 

Jimmy points to one with yellow-and-blue striped fish on it. “Go with the little fish?”

She chuckles and takes it from the shelf. Stares at it for a few moments, looks back to the display, then shrugs and tosses it in the cart. “Fish it is.”

They keep moving, down aisles of electronics and then home appliances. His eyes linger on a portable radio, but his bank account already feels painfully empty after paying his school fees and buying second hand textbooks, and he can just listen to music off the TV anyway. He yawns again, pressing his fist to his mouth. 

Kim turns back to look at him. “You okay?” 

Jimmy shrugs. “Yeah, just didn’t sleep well,” he says. He pauses for a second, then adds, “Dunno why.” 

Kim frowns, studying him. 

Jimmy chuckles, shaking his head dismissively. He can feel another yawn rising in him an he fights against it, pointing to all the coffee packets in her cart instead. “Careful about throwing stones here, skippy.” 

“All right, all right…” Kim murmurs, glancing at the coffee too. She doesn’t say anything else, just keeps pushing the wobbly cart, eventually turning down an aisle with shelves of blenders, juicers—then coffeemakers. 

There’s dozens and dozens, but Kim moves as if she knows exactly what she’s looking for. She stretches up to grab a large box, grunting as she lowers it to rest it on a shelf near hip-level, tilting it back to study the writing on the front. She stares at it for a long time, lips folded inward thoughtfully. 

Jimmy moves away, looking at coffee grinders idly, turning over the packages to study the illustrations on the back, the stock photographs of smiling people. When he heads back, Kim’s still staring at the same coffeemaker. 

“What’s up?” he asks, moving alongside her and examining it, too. He reads some of the colorful marketing text— _Good coffee is for life_ and _Start the day right_ —then chuckles. “Sounds pretty damn great.” 

“Huh?” Kim shifts, turning to him. She blinks. 

Jimmy smiles. He points to the box. “That the right one?” 

“Oh, uh…” 

“I get it, it’s a big commitment,” he says. He taps the writing on the box. “Good coffee is for life. You’re basically getting married.”

And Kim laughs quietly at that, but continues to study the box. 

“When did Andrea move out? A week ago?” Jimmy prompts. 

She nods. 

“So that’s a week on HHM coffee alone? No way to live, Kim.” 

She nods again. 

Jimmy holds out his hands to take the box from her, but eventually she just gives a sharp nod. She shifts past him to nestle it in the shopping cart herself, making space between the ringbinders and lint rollers.

“You see the toasters anywhere?” she asks, and she doesn’t meet his eyes, just peers past him down the long, fluorescent aisles of the Walmart. 

“Uh—” Jimmy starts, glancing over at the signs that hang above the shelves. 

But she moves on before he can really answer, the loose wheel on the shopping cart shaking as she heads down the next aisle, shoes creaking on the linoleum. 

And Jimmy leans against the shelf of shower curtains, eyes closed. 

There’s a steady throb of pain in his bad knee, a constant twinge he hasn’t felt in years. Probably from sleeping at his tiny kitchen table earlier this week, legs crammed underneath the wood, head down and drool sticking to the pages of his textbook. He’d awoken to the blaring of his alarm from across the apartment. 

He bends to rub his palm over his knee, just for a moment, and then he forces his eyelids up and follows Kim. 

* * *

The high windows are open again in the public speaking classroom, but they’re not doing much good. The air inside is heavy with heat, and Jimmy can feel dust crawling on his skin—or maybe that’s just sweat, dripping down the back of his neck, soaking his collar. He’s already yawned twice in the last few minutes, and he fights against another one. The heat seems to want to worm its way into his brain, moving sluggishly through his body toward his skull. 

Yesterday, Jimmy’s business class had been in an enormous lecture theatre. It had been so cold in there he was almost shivering in his short-sleeved button up, but here the air-con is clearly not working, and the heat of the day is trapped in the close space, thick between them all. 

He shakes his head to clear it then turns to the ponytailed kid beside him. Ellis is still wearing a long-sleeved hoodie despite everything, though today it’s for a different theme park. _I Survived the King Cobra_ , it says on the back. 

Ellis flicks through his mottled grey exercise book, pages of messy writing and doodles flashing past. “Shit,” he says, face red. “I mighta left it at home?” He rubs the sleeve of his hoodie over his sweat-damp upper lip. 

Jimmy glances over to where Professor Reiss is helping the two students across the horseshoe of desks. As he watches, Reiss twists to look back at the air-less vent, her forehead creasing, clearly only half listening to whatever they’re saying.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

Jimmy turns. 

The woman next to him, Samantha—or Sam, he remembers—is staring at him. She’s a couple of years older than him, and her brown bangs are damp from the heat like he knows his are, sticking together in clumps. Her glasses slip along her nose, and she pushes them back up then points to Jimmy’s legal pad.

Jimmy looks down at it. They’re all still working on selling themselves. Selling why they’re here. Reiss hadn’t used that word, but that’s how it feels to him. Features and benefits—what Jimmy McGill can do for _you_. His paper is divided into four quadrants.

“Prison?” Sam prompts at his silence, and she nods to the word on the paper, half-smile on her face. “Jeez. Some people have all the luck.”

Jimmy raises his eyebrows, but her tone is light. He says, “Luck?” 

“So you got out, reformed your life, and now you work at a law firm?” She sighs. “Instant A+ material.”

Jimmy laughs. He looks to Reiss and then pauses. Turns back to Sam. “Yeah, and wait until you hear about my work with old people.” 

Sam makes a wounded noise. “Oh God, I don’t want to know.” On her own paper, she has the same four quadrants. In the biggest letters in the high importance quadrant is: _Sounded fun?_

Jimmy just smiles. He looks away again. After a moment, he flicks to a blank page in his legal pad. Writes the date at the top and underlines it. He closes his eyes and opens them with effort, then wipes the back of his hand over his forehead. “Jesus,” he says, and he tugs on the knot of his tie, loosening it and then slipping it over his head. 

“I can’t find my answers,” Ellis says, slamming his book closed. His face is blotched and red, and he grunts, bending down to hunt through his backpack, pulling loose sheets of paper out onto the desk—more doodles and notes, then what looks like poetry or song lyrics. 

Sweat curls into the dip of Jimmy’s temple, prickling on his skin. 

And then, with a mechanical rush, the air-con kicks on. He hears it before he feels it, a long thin hissing that finally blasts from the ceiling vent down into his damp hair, cracking over his scalp. It ices the sweat at the back of his neck, standing the hairs on end.

With it comes the smell of old dust and something burnt, something sharp and acrid, but Jimmy doesn’t care. He leans back in his chair, tipping his face upward, feeling the cold air on his cheeks and lips and eyelids. 

Some time later, Ellis cries triumphantly, and Jimmy pries his eyelids open and sits forward. Ellis unfolds a piece of paper, where his own four-quadrant assignment is messily filled out, just in time for Professor Reiss to reach the three of them.

* * *

Jimmy watches his laundry sloshing in the machine, the soap-frothed water seething at the edges of the circular glass. He rubs at his eyes. They feel dry—and maybe it’s the heat, or maybe it’s just that they haven’t been closed for long enough in the last few weeks. 

So he closes them now, shifting in the plastic laundromat chair, trying to get comfortable. At least when he gets back to his apartment it won’t be filled with dirty clothes anymore. Just empty takeout boxes and beer bottles. 

The machine before him whirrs calmly. The water sloshes. 

Jimmy exhales, sinking into the hard chair, but as he starts to feel himself drifting, he forces his eyes open. Cracks the book on his lap and stares blankly down at the dancing letters. He has no idea what they say.

He looks away again.

There’s an “Open” sign hanging in front of the window near him. Little blue lights encircle the word, shifting back and forth. 

At a table nearby, an old man folds white shirts slowly and methodically, back hunched. 

_The Laundry Quarters_ , the place is called, a pun that now mostly makes Jimmy think of a barracks, but it’s the closest laundromat to his place, just a two minute walk. Long rows of machines stretch out beneath the flickering white lights. 

He needs to go. Needs to get his clothes dry, and needs to make it home before midnight, and needs to finish this chapter, and then finish the next chapter, and then sleep…. 

…and then sleep. He wakes to a hand on his shoulder, and blinks with dream-thick eyes up at a bearded old man in a drab blue hoodie. The man grunts at him.

“Mmrf?” Jimmy manages.

“Driver says this’s your stop.” The old man jerks his head toward the front. “Said to give you a shove.”

Jimmy turns, staring out the window to where a familiar line of shops glows with yellow and red lights in the dark. He mumbles something and reaches between his knees for his backpack and then stands abruptly. Looks out at the shops again then shoulders past the old guy, who calls out, “Hey man, you’re welcome!” as Jimmy moves down the aisle, a little unsteady on his feet. 

The driver is a balding man with a birthmark on the side of his neck. Jimmy’s thanked him evening after evening on his way home, and does it again now, more heartfelt than usual—and the driver responds as he ever does, a twitched smile and jerked head. 

Jimmy descends the bus stairs to the sidewalk, landing heavy on his soles. 

The night air feels tight around him, woollen. 

It moves slow in his throat as he blinks again at the shops, momentarily lost. What does he— 

He needs to get home, he thinks. Needs to eat something, needs to find the textbook he lost last night, needs to shower and rinse off the sweat of the day and finish his business essay and finish his public speaking talking points and then sleep… 

…and then sleep, he thinks, steadying himself against the counter, and then I can sleep, just get this handed-in and get it out of my head and it’s done, and I don’t have to worry about it anymore— 

But the words he’s just heard finish twisting through his head and he blinks.

“What?” Jimmy says, squinting down a the red-haired kid over the business school counter. “Seriously?” 

“The hand-in time was five o’clock,” the kid repeats, staring up at Jimmy weakly. “Uh, it says right here on the sheet. So I gotta stamp yours, sorry.”

Jimmy exhales through his nose. “Jesus,” he says, tight through gritted teeth. He glances away, to the tidy foyer, feeling his pulse heavy in his head, then looks back to the kid. “You’re shitting me. Christ.” 

“Uh, I can make it, uh—five-twenty,” the kid says. “I saw you walk in then, before you found me at the desk here.” He looks down at his red stamp and turns one of the numbers back a couple of digits. 

“Fine,” Jimmy spits. “Whatever.” He slides his essay over the counter and sneers. It falls off the edge and toward the kid in a whirl of papers, but Jimmy turns on his heel, walking in time with the pulse that throbs hot under his skin. 

He just needs to get to his public speaking class, he thinks, clenching his jaw. He just needs to give his test speech, just needs to make it through listening to the others’ talk without closing his eyes, just needs to not tip his head back under the cold air and then slip away and then sleep… 

…and then sleep. He can hear the word, unspoken, hissing in his brain, as he stands in the HHM breakroom, waiting for the coffee to brew. The machine is hissing, too. He leans against the benchtop. Tilts his head back to rest against the cabinets above the sink. Closes his eyes. 

Like a river, he thinks. Like a quiet river, and he’s drifting. He feels cold now, sometimes. As if his body can’t regulate his temperature right, as if it’s just offloading unimportant jobs to keep his brain awake. When he feels like that he’s more like he’s water shifting in swirls beneath sheet ice, waiting for a thaw. Waiting for the top to crack. 

A hand on his chest. 

He opens his eyes. 

It’s Kim. She frowns at him, then pulls her hand back. “Still sleeping badly?”

“Just resting my eyes,” he murmurs.

But Kim keeps frowning. 

“I’m good, Kim,” he says.

“Yeah?” she says. The coffee finishes brewing with a click, and she reaches for the jug and then pours a cup and holds it out to him. 

“Thanks,” Jimmy murmurs, taking it. 

“Want me to drop you tonight?” she says, lifting her eyebrows. “Maybe?”

Jimmy drinks slowly, feeling the coffee tingling out from his throat and through his veins, and then he lowers the cup. He sighs. “Don’t you have to go to the library?”

“Nah,” Kim says lightly. “I have plenty of books back at my apartment.”

Jimmy opens his mouth to decline, but then he pauses. Takes a moment to remember the day. It’s a Friday. He doesn’t have classes. 

And Kim continues before he says anything. “Let’s get some food,” she says crisply. “I have a two-for-one coupon for that Chinese place near mine. Yeah?”

So Jimmy nods. He can hang out with Kim for a little while, he thinks. Put off all his work for just a few hours, pretend it doesn’t exist for a movie or two. Then when Kim wants to study, he needs to head home, needs to catch up on his readings, needs to learn the answers for Monday, because the business professor has started calling on him more often ever since that late essay, and he needs to make progress on his next assignment, and he needs to finally clean up the place, and then sleep… 

…and then sleep. His eyes snap open. 

The familiar fruity smell of Kim’s shampoo clings to the pillow beneath his head, to the comfortably-heavy duvet on his shoulder. There’s a dark shape in the bed in front of him, shifting with quiet breaths. 

He rolls around onto his other side slowly and peers at Kim’s glowing alarm clock. It’s a little after one in the morning. He smothers a groan into the pillow. Maybe his body is just used to waking up after a couple of hours now.

Guilt itches in his stomach. He didn’t read as much as he needed to. He didn’t study as much as he needed to. Hours of lost time gone. Instead, watching Kim’s eyelashes flutter closed as she sipped her beer, watching her wet her lips after lowering the glass, he’d stared at her hungrily, and she had noticed, and the two of them had moved almost mechanically to the bedroom. 

He curls his knees up closer to his chest. 

Kim shifts behind him, the mattress sinking as she approaches, but when she touches his back, he still jumps. She withdraws her hand for a moment as if wary, but then lays her palm flat on his shoulder. A warm point of gentle pressure, and he stays still, keeping his breath steady. After a while, she lightly trails her fingers over his spine, in and out of the ridges of the bones. Up beneath his shoulder blade, then down again to ripple over the ridges, then up. 

Eventually, she tugs on his shoulder, and he rolls onto his back. He lifts his arm up so she can curl into his side. “Hey,” she murmurs. 

“Hey,” Jimmy says softly, settling his hand on her arm. 

“Thought you were gonna be dead to the world,” Kim says. 

Jimmy sighs. “Guess not,” he says. Then, after a moment: “Sorry if I woke you.”

He feels her shake her head against his chest. She traces little circles on his stomach. After a while, she says, “Everything okay?” 

Jimmy nods. “Yeah.”

Kim doesn’t respond.

“Just, you know. Crazy dreams,” Jimmy says. “Gotta stop watching the horror channel late at night, huh?” 

She flattens her hand on his stomach at this, moving her palm lightly up over his ribs. She makes a little humming noise at the back of her throat, then finally says, “Jimmy…you’re not back—” But she sighs. Shifts her head so she’s looking up at him in the dim room. The red light of the alarm clock glows in her pupils. She folds in her lips. “You’re not hurt?” 

“Hurt?” Jimmy repeats, word emerging high and thin.

Kim runs her palm over his ribs again. She doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t explain the question, and eventually she just draws her palm back, curling her fingers inward so her hand rests against the side of his waist in a loose fist. She’s quiet for a long time, and then, softly, she says, “You know, the pass rate for the New Mexico bar exam is eighty percent.”

Jimmy blinks. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Kim says. The hand against his side twitches a little. “Higher for first timers, too. It’s after you’ve already failed it once that the pass rate tanks. But sometimes I…” She exhales. Presses her mouth to his chest, and doesn’t continue. 

Jimmy rubs her shoulder. “Those’re just numbers. Doesn’t mean anything.”

She hums. When she speaks again, it seems like a completely different topic: “What was that scam you told me about? Where no matter what got picked, it always added up to, what was it, 1066?”

“1089,” Jimmy says warmly, moving his hand over her skin. “Yeah, people ate that up. Got some good nights out of that before everyone in Cicero figured it out.” 

Kim nods against him, and he’s half waiting for her to talk more about numbers meaning things and the bar exam, but instead she says, “In Cicero?” 

He tilts his head to look down at her. It’s hard to read her expression in the dimness, and she’s not looking at him, anyway. “Yeah,” he says, finally. 

She nods again. And then, even quieter: “You ever think about doing that again?” 

“What?”

And now she does look up at him, and he can see her eyes even in the darkness, wide and kind, but—worried? 

Jimmy frowns. He hasn’t thought about that guy in weeks, hasn’t even felt that gnawing tug in his chest. He just shakes his head. 

A moment passes, and then Kim nods yet again, slower this time. “Okay,” she says. She shifts, pulling back a bit, then pats his chest. “Back to sleep? You want some space?”

“Nah,” Jimmy says. He squeezes her shoulder. “This is nice.”

So she tucks herself into his side again, hand resting lightly on his chest, leg tangled between his. He can feel her breath on his skin. 

“What about you?” he murmurs, some time later. He rubs his thumb in small circles over her arm. Squeezes it and adds, “How are you?”

There’s a long silence, just Kim’s breath on his skin. He finally feels her words more than he hears them, gentle on his chest, like ghosts: “I’m good.” 

He nods.

A few minutes later, Kim runs her hand over the spot where he felt them land. It’s as if she’s wiping them away, brushing them off his skin. 

And then sleep…

…and then sleep. He just needs to make it a few more minutes, then he can leave. The air con is a cold sheet above him at least, as Professor Reiss wraps up, telling them about next Tuesday’s lesson plan, reminding them of how much they need to get done over the weekend. 

Jimmy lets the ice sweep over his skin. 

Reiss finishes talking. There’s the general clattering of everyone packing away their things, but he lingers for a moment longer. Listens to the chairs scrape back and the door swing open and shut. 

A yawn claws its way out of his chest and he stifles it with his fist. 

“You look good.” 

He opens his eyes. Sam is still here, standing with her bag slung over her shoulder. 

“Thanks,” Jimmy says dryly. “I feel good.”

She chuckles. She moves as if to leave, and then pauses. “You know, there’s a cafe on campus that serves pretty decent espresso.”

His brain perks up automatically at the word. He thinks about the pile of work in his backpack, and the bigger pile of work waiting for him back at his place, and he stayed with Kim again last night so the stack of readings and assignments seems bigger in mind than when he’d left because he now has even less time to do them all. At that thought, another yawn bursts out of him, and he stifles it, then laughs. “Okay, I could use a quick coffee.” 

They end up sitting down outside the cafe before Jimmy’s thought too much about it, before he’s thought about how happy he is to keep adding papers to that metaphorical pile if it means he doesn’t have to look at it again for just a little while longer. As if it’s hit a tipping point, and one lost hour, one lost evening, one lost day doesn’t really matter anymore. 

He settles at the table, rubbing his thumb and forefinger over his eyes. It’s warm outside, and there’s a dry breeze blowing between the buildings. Sam’s bangs flutter around her forehead. Little yellow and red flags crack above them in the wind. 

Their coffees arrive quickly, small espressos in colorful cups. Jimmy reaches for the sugar packets. 

“Oh no,” Sam says solemnly. 

“What?” Jimmy says, raising his eyebrows. 

She shakes her head at him, smiling. “You’ll ruin it.” 

“Oh yeah?” Jimmy says, and then he shrugs and takes a cautious sip. It’s bitter and sour and sweet, and not terrible. As he swallows, he gives an exaggerated grimace. 

Sam laughs warmly. 

“Not bad,” Jimmy says, shrugging. He waits a moment, then adds, “It’d be better with sugar.” 

“Fine.” She waves at hand at him dismissively. 

The wind rises, snapping the triangular banners, and then dies down again. Jimmy stirs the sugar into his drink, and then takes another long sip.

Sam looks at something down the gap between the buildings, and then she glances back at him. “So how long you been in Burque?” 

It takes Jimmy a second to realize she means Albuquerque. He answers, words that still surprise him: “Little over a year.” 

Sam nods. “What do you think of it?”

And Jimmy cradles his tiny coffee and shrugs. “I don’t know yet.” 

Sam chuckles. “I don’t know yet, either,” she says, then adds, “and I've been here my whole life.” 

He nods. The yellow and red flags shift in the wind. It’s nice sitting here with the warm breeze, with the strong coffee already thudding through his veins. Not like Cicero at all, he thinks, as always, never like Cicero, where half the streets are unchanged since Capone drove down them.

Albuquerque feels like it’s still being discovered. Like the desert.

He thinks of the national monuments and old hotels that might be just over the wide and dark horizon waiting to finally emerge, waiting to be discovered after a quiet drive. 

Sam sets down her cup with a clink. 

“So,” Jimmy says mildly, aware of how long he’s been quiet, wanting to fill the silence. “Uh, you taking any other classes?”

“Nah,” Sam says. “Just seeing what suits me. I’m in no rush, I already got a decent job.” 

“Yeah,” Jimmy says. He remembers his sheet of paper from weeks ago, where under ‘future goals’ he’d just written, _Get my degree_ and nothing else. But he nods. “What d’you do?” 

“Family business,” she says. “We sell specialty parts for furniture. Like, you know, fittings, fasteners, other components. Got a wholesale store up in Alameda.”

“Nice,” Jimmy says, nodding. 

She glances away, again studying something in the distance, then she exhales. “Man, I don’t know about you, but I’m always so hungry after those classes.” She meets his eyes, and hers are soft and bright. “If you ever wanted to get dinner sometime…” 

And Jimmy’s pulse increases the same way it’s done ever since he was a teenager, but he says, “Uh, I’m already seeing somebody.” 

Sam nods as if she’d been half expecting that answer, and her face stays relaxed, warm. She shrugs. “No big.” She drains the last of her coffee then smiles at him. “Well, if things ever change, I’d like to get to know you better.” The smile dims a little. “I hope that’s not too blunt, but I’m just so tired of it all. I like to get things out in the open.”

Jimmy chuckles, and he studies her again, studies the way her smile reaches her eyes as she sits opposite him. “Not too blunt,” he says. 

“Good.” 

And the silence feels more comfortable now, somehow, so Jimmy doesn’t do anything to fill it. Eventually he finishes his own coffee, and they stand, pushing in their chairs and each leaving some cash on the table. As they move away, Jimmy turns to face the direction Sam had been looking. The sky glows pink and yellow with the setting sun. 

He sees Sam stop beside him out of the corner of his eye and turns. “Thanks for the coffee,” he says. 

“Of course,” she says. She gives a half grin that rises on one side of her face. “Just trying to help you make your mind up about the place, right?” 

Jimmy smiles. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I’ll let you know.” He looks out at the sun dipping beneath the peaks of the distant rooftops and thinks of the wide desert horizon.

* * *

Jimmy pokes at his sweet and sour pork, shifting the meat around in the carton, watching the pieces tumble and stick to each other. Eventually, he abandons it and just leans forward and puts the box on Kim’s coffee table, then settles back and props his head on his hand. 

He has a headache right behind his left eye, probably from staring at microscopic print for too long last night. It’s been tapping on his skull ever since he woke up, wanting to be let out. He closes his eyes briefly then opens them, and when he opens them, Kim is watching him. 

He gives her a small smile, and she straightens out her legs, resting them on his lap. 

The TV is set to a local news station, muted. Jimmy hasn’t been paying attention to it at all, but he stares at the silent set, letting the picture swim in his vision. The screen becomes ribbons of shifting colors, growing even brighter as the news gives way to commercials. A tropical beach turns into streaks of gold and blue. A ski resort becomes white and green.

Jimmy blinks, and looks away—looks down at his lap. Kim's feet are a comfortable weight on his thighs. He runs his hand down one of her shins, over the curve of her ankle, settling his palm onto the arced top of her foot. He stares at his hand lying there like he’d stared at the TV, letting the image of it drift in and out of focus. 

The door to Kim’s roommate’s room opens, and the roommate herself emerges in a flurry: Ellen, small and intense, with dark eyes seem to drill into Jimmy’s every time she looks at him. She strides into the kitchen and fills a mug with coffee from the pot, but lingers on her way back, staring.

“Hi, Ellen,” Jimmy says mildly. 

She ignores him, looking to Kim instead. “Is he gonna start paying rent if he stays here so often?”

Kim’s eyebrows crawl up towards her hairline. Her eyes narrow. She doesn’t say anything for some time, until finally: “Is that my coffee?” 

Ellen huffs, lips fluttering, and returns to her room without answering. Her door closes with a snap.

“Hah,” Jimmy says softly, and he grins at Kim. “Still at war, then?”

Kim just shuts her eyes briefly.

“Beggars and choosers, right?” Jimmy says.

“Think I should rephrase that beggars thing, actually,” Kim says. “You couldn’t _give_ her away.” 

Jimmy chuckles, and then a yawn rises from his stomach. He presses his fist to his mouth. 

Kim catches it from him and yawns widely, too. “Damn you,” she murmurs afterwards, and then she studies him for a moment. Shrugs. “You’re not here that often, anyway.”

He frowns. “I’ve been here most nights this week,” he says lightly.

Kim looks surprised, gaze skimming over his face and off into the middle distance as if she’s calculating something. Her eyes flicker for a moment, then shift back to his. “Really?” she says softly. 

“Yeah,” Jimmy murmurs. And his metaphorical and literal piles of school work have been growing bigger and bigger while he’s been here. He’s even had to slip out of bed a couple of nights, hoping Kim won’t notice, locking the door to her bathroom and sitting on the toilet beside the yellow-and-blue fish on the shower curtain. Squinting his way through chapters that seemed to get longer and longer, the font smaller and smaller. 

Kim presses her fingers into her eyelids. She exhales once, steadily, slowly. A careful rush of breath.

He rubs his palm over the top of her foot, feeling the warmth of it through her sock, and then squeezes gently.

She exhales again. This time it’s less steady, her breath stuttering a little. Her shoulders are perfectly still, as if she’s trying not to move them. 

“Kim?” Jimmy says carefully, sitting up. 

She lowers her hands. Her eyes are dry, but red-rimmed all the same—red-rimmed with tiredness and some other emotion Jimmy can’t place. Her lips tremble, ever-so-slightly.

He tightens his hold on her foot. Frozen, watching her.

“I can’t keep it all in my head,” she says, the words finally spilling from her like water, like water bubbling up from a cracked lake.

“Keep what in your head?” Jimmy murmurs, thinking she’s talking about how often he’s spent the night, but then he clicks and says, “The bar exam?”

And her words keep coming: “I can’t. I can’t do it. When I look at my notes, I _know_ them, but I just can’t keep them all in my head, Jimmy.” She breathes out through her nose once, quickly, eyes darting upwards, and then she looks at him again. “It’s too much. I can’t hold on to it all.”

He nods, head bobbing up and down stupidly, not knowing what to say.

“Sometimes I try to think of a case and it’s like…it’s like—” she gestures wildly with her hands, vague and uncertain circles before her “—nothing, like pulling on nothing.” Her chest keeps moving, rising and falling with rapid breaths. She looks away from him again and swallows, and then looks back. And softer: “What if that happens in the exam?” Her eyes shift between his, small movements, left and right. “What if I'm sitting there and it’s all gone? And then I’m…” A repeat of her vague gesture, and Jimmy finishes her sentence in his head: nothing. 

He stares at her.

And she stares back, eyes wide and dark. She presses her lips together and raises her eyebrows, and he squeezes her foot even tighter. As if he can help hold her together from here. As if he can hold her to him. 

And then within seconds she changes. She seems to pull inward, eyes shifting away, shoulders rising like she’s enclosing herself between the ridges of them. 

She shifts her feet off his lap. Twists them over the edge of the sofa and gets up, collecting their empty takeout containers from the coffee table. He watches her bustle away to dump them in the garbage, then move back past him down to her bedroom. 

But even the way she moves betrays her tiredness. The careful steps, the hesitation on the threshold of her room as if she’s forgotten why she wanted to go in there. The hand that briefly touches the doorframe as she finally passes through it. He can hear papers rustling as she sorts through her own mountain, and he knows it’s taller and much more precarious than his own. 

And much harder to climb.

So Jimmy leans forward and reaches for his backpack where it’s tucked under the coffee table, pushing aside his shoes to snag one of the straps and then pulling it out. He hunts through for his business textbook. Lets it fall open to the right chapter, the one he’d abandoned at four o’clock last night. 

When Kim comes back to the living room a few minutes later, he can already feel the pressure headache throbbing behind his left eye again, is already losing track of the long-winded sentences. She sits down beside him, a binder filled with her own well-organized notes tight in her grip. 

She flicks through it then sighs and glances over at him. Frowns and peers at his book, then says, “I thought—” She seems to catch herself. Smiles warmly at him. “You’re giving the marketing another chance with Howard?” 

And Jimmy opens his mouth. He glances down at the textbook then back up at her. The warmth of her smile seems almost to caress his skin, and he feels himself saying, “Yeah.” He blinks. She’s still smiling. “Yeah,” he repeats, stronger this time, shaping the word intentionally. “Another shot. Uh—I mean, I still don’t wanna work in the mailroom forever, right?”

“Right,” Kim says softly. Her smile doesn’t dim. It lingers on her closed lips, flickering like a flame. 

And Jimmy swallows. “Especially not—” He gestures to her vaguely, then says, “You know.”

She exhales in something almost like relief, and the walls seems to come down again—and with them, she moves. She shifts to him, reaching for him and lifting a hand up and rubbing her thumb over his lips, as if she’s seen her own version of flames in them, and she’s damping them out before she can kiss him—and then she does, and he kisses back, humming. 

She moves over him, her knees bridging his hips. Her fingers are tight on the nape of his neck, and he tucks his hand up under her shirt, pressing hard on the small of her back, and she’s moving against him, breathing in ragged glimpses that he hears minutes after he feels them— 

—and he lets the mountains grow bigger and bigger and bigger, out of sight. 


	4. The Bar Exam

For the rest of the month and into most of July, Jimmy feels as if he only sees Kim in glimpses, in shuttered bursts of colorful scenes. 

Like one night, when he walks into her bedroom and finds her standing before a wall of bright post-its, pinks and yellows and blues arranged in cascading towers, each scribbled with indecipherable shorthand. She writes something on another yellow one then peels it off and sticks it to the base of a line with a careful swipe of her thumb. 

Jimmy moves to her and rests his palm on the small of her back. She turns, lowering her forehead to his shoulder for a short moment, before looking to her bed, to its covers spread with bull-clipped bundles of notes and loose papers in offset piles. The bed where it doesn’t look like she'll be sleeping for at least a few hours yet. 

Or another glimpse: Kim with her feet up on her coffee table, surrounded by stacks of legal paper, arranged clumsily, leaf over leaf. Rising around her like so much yellowed corn. Jimmy picks up one of the papers. It’s covered in writing too messy for him to read—and probably for Kim to read, too. 

“What’s this?” he asks. 

She keeps writing, hand moving furiously, shaking her head, but he gets his reply about ten minutes later, when she lays down her pen and flexes her fingers. From her tone, you’d think that no time had passed at all: “It’s everything I know about unenforceable contracts.” 

“Huh,” Jimmy says, wedging his thumb in his textbook as he closes it. He picks up a piece of paper again, staring at the scrawled ink, then looks to her. “Does this help? Can you even read it?”

Kim shakes her head, and he doesn’t know what question she’s responding to. Yes, she can read it; or yes, it helps. Maybe both. She yawns widely, then lowers her hand and nods to his lap. “What’re you working on again?” 

Jimmy looks down to his textbook, still marked with this thumb. He shifts it so the title— _Understanding Corporate Social Responsibility_ —is a little less visible from her angle. “Uh, marketing proposal for Howard, you know?” he says. And then he repeats what he’s said the last three times she’s asked the question, what he knows she hasn’t actually made space to remember: “Gonna do it right this time. Actually use that almost-degree. Remind myself how to speak their language.” 

“Right,” Kim says distantly. She’s already looking back to her own work, already vanishing again. 

Or another glimpse, on the indigo-striped second floor of HHM, when he sees her moving toward him, in and out of the squares of afternoon light. She hasn’t been in the mailroom for weeks now, but she doesn’t look any less tired for it—instead, she’s been spending longer days at her bar review, and Jimmy wonders why HHM didn’t just let her do this earlier, why they worked her to the bone for so long. As if they couldn’t get by with one less mailroom lackey for a few more months. 

But here she is, carrying a stack of folders so tall she has to balance it against her chest: blue and green and marbled spines stacked high in her arms.

“Kim?” Jimmy says, slowing his mail cart in her path.

She stills, peering at him over the top of the stack.

He takes a couple of the heavy folders from the pile, and she lets him. “Everything good?”

“Mmm,” Kim says, rolling her head around, and he can almost hear the crunch of bones in her neck. “Pep talk from Howard. Took an _hour._ ”

Jimmy lets out a disgusted noise. Once, it might’ve been exaggerated, but he’s starting to learn the value of an hour now, too. “Well,” he says lightly, “you do look pepped up.” 

Kim glances down at her stack of folders and frowns. 

“Here, I have ‘em,” Jimmy says, gesturing with the ones he’s holding—three heavy blue ringbinders, swelling with papers. “What are all these, anyway?” 

“I wasn’t sure if Howard would be running late,” Kim says, taking the folders back from Jimmy and restacking them on her tower. “So I brought my notes.”

Jimmy gives a soft laugh. “Yeah.”

And Kim glances down the hall in the direction she came, then looks back to him. “Okay, Jimmy, I gotta go. I’ll see you later?” 

He nods, but Kim’s already moving, stepping around the mail cart and past him, brushing against his shoulder. Jimmy touches his hand to the spot as he watches her disappear. 

He doesn’t end up seeing her that night, or hearing from her until the next week. And it’s not even really a glimpse this time, just her voice on the other end of his phone late at night, as he lies back in bed and looks up at the blue light that shines through the small, square windows on the wall above him. 

She doesn’t say much, just asks him about his day, and he tells her: that Ernie and Burt had somehow broken the breakroom vending machine; that Burt’s Sun Chips had gotten stuck and they didn’t hear the end of it; that Chuck had taken on a new case with lots of discovery. He tells her that he was just reading about the fascinating world of corporate philanthropy, and she says, For that marketing proposal? and after a beat he says, Yeah, for that marketing proposal, and anyway—and he keeps going, voice soft and lips close to the phone handset, until he hears her fall asleep on the other end of the line. 

Or another glimpse, one night in her bed, when he wakes up to the sound of her voice and rolls over to see her lying there, talking in her sleep. He can make out some of the words, and it’s no wonder she’d looked so tired when she opened her door earlier that evening, if even her dreams are filled with _claim preclusion_ and _issue preclusion_ and _judicial economy_ and other phrases that now fall hushed from her lips, her eyelids flickering like she’s tracing the letters over a blank page. 

Her curtains are open a crack, and a line of blue light falls across the two of them and onto the wall of post-it notes, climbing the yellow tower to the ceiling. Jimmy lies there listening to Kim, his body heavy with lost sleep, his thoughts sluggish and hazy, letting her voice drift past him. 

A few days later, he recognises some of the words. It’s late at night and he’s sitting beside Kim at the kitchen counter, boxes of take-out between them and his business textbook open in front of him. He hasn’t been reading it for a while now, though, just sitting with his head propped on his palm, staring distantly. 

“…claim preclusion, same transaction test, same _evidence_ test…” Kim is saying, her voice just above a whisper and her eyes closed. She’s holding her fingers out like she’s counting up numbers, and, as he watches, her thumb wavers, as if she’s searching for a corresponding thing to say.

“What’s that?” Jimmy asks, shifting on his stool so he’s facing her. 

She doesn’t hear him at first, so he repeats it, and she looks up to him. “Huh?” she says, brow furrowing. 

“What are you reciting?” he asks. 

Kim's eyes flicker between his own for a moment, then she holds up one of the bull-clipped stacks of papers on the countertop. _CIV PRO,_ it says, in sharp black letters on the front “Memorising this,” she says. 

“The whole thing?”

“No,” she says shortly, flipping over the first few pages and then cursing. 

“I recognise it,” Jimmy says, and he waits for Kim to look back to him before nodding. “Kept me up all night with that last week.”

She frowns. “I did? How?”

“Mhm. Speechmaking in your sleep. Little private off-Broadway show, just for me. Passionate, intimate.” 

And Kim groans, dropping her head onto her arms. 

“Maybe throw it away a bit more, next time—hey, hey, I’m kidding,” Jimmy says, laying a hand on her shoulder. “It was like five minutes, then you conked out again.” 

“God,” Kim murmurs, voice muffled in her forearm.

He rubs her shoulder, pressing his thumb into the soft fabric of her t-shirt. Her hair falls over her neck onto the dark countertop—gold on grey. He wonders what he’d do if she fell asleep like this, at just after midnight, at least three hours before she’s been calling it recently. Whether he’d leave her here to sleep with a crick in her neck, or nudge her awake for more relentless studying. 

But she lifts her head off her arms before he has to decide, rubbing at her eyelids with her forefinger and thumb. 

So Jimmy covers a yawn with his fist, and then looks down to his own book again. He still has an essay to write, due in a couple of days, but he can throw it together tomorrow, especially if he doesn’t hear from Kim—and what difference does getting an A or a C make at this point anyway? As long as he ends up with the course credits, who cares? But he drags himself out of bed before the sun is up the next morning, heading off to the CNM library to hurriedly copy down sources from the back pages of other books, as if he’s done more research than he really has. 

And then, suddenly, it’s the day before the bar exam. An ever-looming presence finally on the horizon. If there’s one thing that Jimmy has always been able to glean from Kim’s notes it’s tomorrow’s date, the 27th of July, and beside it a vanishing number, smaller and smaller every time he sees it: ten days to go, eight days to go, five days to go, two days to go. 

And now, standing next to Kim as she stares at the flat, beige face of the Albuquerque Convention Center, Jimmy thinks he knows what she sees superimposed on it: an enormous floating zero, zero days to go—nothing.

“Hey, not bad,” Jimmy says, nudging her with his elbow, turning her gaze to him. “Didn’t take too long, so you won’t have to leave early tomorrow.”

Kim hums thoughtfully and starts to move away, back toward her car. “Yeah, but it’ll be morning traffic,” she says, as he follows alongside her. 

The plaza outside the convention center is enormous: huge squares of beige cement punctuated by lampposts and benches that are painted bright blue, and a single copse of trees. The evening sun beats down, hot and rippling across the concrete, and a large fountain made from offset brown stones kicks up the smell of chlorine. 

“I really should’ve done the test drive in the morning,” Kim continues, “but that last day of bar review, you know?”

“How was it?” Jimmy asks, skimming his hand through one of the jets of water as they pass—it’s warm. 

“Mind numbing as usual,” Kim says. “Waste of time. Most of ‘em have gone off to get drinks, anyway.” 

“Least you had time to get your bearings here before it got dark, huh?” Jimmy says. 

Kim just nods, and she slips her backpack around to the front to rummage through the pocket for her car keys. Jimmy waits beside the passenger door, staring back down toward the convention center, past the glittering fountain. The signs for tomorrow’s bar exam had been up inside the building already, and the rope markers for where to queue in the morning, and the big warning reminders of all the things prohibited from the center during the exam. 

He hears Kim curse and turns back. She’s managed to unlock the car and has already settled into the driver’s seat, so he opens his door and slides in, but she’s hunting through her backpack for something else now. 

“Shit!” she hisses, and she hauls an enormous folder out and flicks through it, pages and pages of bullet points separated by colorful dividers. All the way to the end, then back to the top, then—“Shit!”

“What’s up?”

Kim hands him the enormous folder wordlessly and twists to look over at the backseat, where piles of bull-clipped papers are sprawled along the fabric. She rifles through them, movements sharp and frantic. 

“Kim?” Jimmy says.

“Have you seen a piece of paper?”

“Uh…” he says, lips twitching.

“—found it!” she gasps, and she twists back, a folded square of white in her grasp. “Thank god,” she says, closing her eyes for a moment, breathing heavily. When she opens her eyes, she looks at him sitting there, her overflowing ringbinder of notes in his hands. “Oh, you can put that over the back now.”

“Gee, thanks,” Jimmy says, hefting it through the gap in the seats and settling it somewhere on top of all the other papers. “Jesus, Kim, what’re all these back here, anyway?”

“Those are just my outlines,” Kim says shortly, scanning the paper in her hands. It’s crowded with such tiny, dense writing it’s a wonder she can read it at all. 

“And that folder?” Jimmy says.

“That’s my outline of my outlines.”

“Okay,” Jimmy says mildly. He taps the paper in her hands with his forefinger. “And what’s this then, the outline of the outline of the outlines?”

“Yes,” Kim says simply.

“Okay,” Jimmy says again. He sits there quietly while she studies it, and then finally reaches for it. It lifts easily from Kim’s loose grasp. 

She frowns. “Jimmy…” 

“Kim,” he says gently. He stares at her. “I’ll keep it safe, okay?”

She stares back, gaze hard. 

“Just breathe for a minute.”

Her eyes soften. “All right,” she says quietly. “Just a minute?”

“A minute.” 

She tilts her head back onto the headrest and closes her eyes. Keeps them closed for one minute, two minutes. Five minutes. He can tell she’s not asleep, can tell by how rigid her shoulders are, can tell by the way her eyelids twitch. 

And then finally, he leans closer. “Listen, Kim,” he murmurs. He gestures with the page of microscopic writing, the tiny incomprehensible abbreviations arranged in lists and sublists. “If you don’t know this already, you won’t by tomorrow. Why don’t we just get some dinner?”

Kim makes a humming noise and shakes her head slightly, eyes still closed. 

“You’re just gonna fry your, you know,” Jimmy says, and he touches the side of her forehead. When Kim opens her eyes, he draws back his hand. “You gotta give it a rest. Get a real night’s sleep for once. Eat some brain food.”

Kim’s eyebrows rise. “Brain food?” 

“Yeah, sure. Sushi,” Jimmy says, nodding. “All those good omega whatevers, right?”

And she smiles softly, still shaking her head. She doesn’t say anything. 

So he leans away again, settling back into his seat. Out the front window, a yellow New Mexico flag flaps from a blue lamppost. 

“Or we could do Flying Star?” Kim says quietly. 

He turns to her and smiles. “Yeah,” he says. “We could definitely do Flying Star.”

* * *

The restaurant is crowded, the voices of other patrons loud, and there’s clattering and hissing and shouting coming from the kitchen. Jimmy jabs his fork into a breakfast sausage and then pops it into his mouth, chewing slowly. The table between him and Kim is loaded with various other half-finished all-day breakfast offerings: flapjacks and french toast and home fries. 

Kim takes a long drink of her water, the ice cubes rattling, then sets down the glass. She idly pokes at a slice of french toast, but then lowers her fork, laying it down on her plate. 

“Better now?” Jimmy says. “Not thinking about the you-know-what?”

Kim makes a small scoffing noise. “Of course not,” she says. “How could I be?”

He chuckles. 

Kim rolls her head around on her neck, and again Jimmy thinks he can hear the crack of her bones, and then she exhales. She rubs her face, the pads of her fingers pressing into her eyelids. Lowers her hands and stares at him blearily. 

Jimmy makes a sympathetic face. “All good?”

“Mm,” she says, nodding, and she studies him for a bit. “Budge up.” She slides around the booth toward him, then settles her head onto his shoulder, and says, “Okay if I sleep here?”

“Okay,” he says softly. “I’ll eat all the rest of this food by myself, though.”

“Like to see you try,” Kim murmurs into his shoulder, and he chuckles. After a moment, she shifts, lifting her head up, though she’s still leaning against him. 

They sit together like that in silence, staring out at the other tables. At the back of Jimmy’s mind, a quiet voice reminds him of the dwindling days left before his final public speaking presentation, a voice that sounds like a knuckle tapping gently on glass— _soon, soon, soon,_ it seems to say, hollow and rhythmic. 

But instead, he stares at a table of middle-aged guys: old friends, he thinks, from high school or college. They look like they were athletes back in the day, now gone to seed. Except the one closest, whose biceps still burst from his sleeves as he crosses his arms over his chest. The vein in his neck is visible even from here. 

And a smile grows on Jimmy’s face. He jostles Kim gently, then points over at the guy, hand low above the table. “See Jean-Claude Van Damme over there?” he murmurs. 

Kim looks in the direction. “With the Cobb salad?” she asks. 

“Yeah,” Jimmy says, and he looks to her. “Reckon I could take him?”

Kim peers up at him at that, and then she snorts.

He chuckles. “Okay, maybe not, fine,” he says, but he’s thinking about a hypothetical that always drove Marco and the other regulars insane at Arnos, and he shifts so that his arm’s hooked over the back of the booth behind Kim. He darts another glance down to her, then says cockily, “I reckon I could win a fight with any animal, though.”

Kim studies him, clearly already sensing a catch, because instead of playing into it she sidesteps, teasing: “Even a goldfish…?” 

“Yeah, easy,” Jimmy says brightly. “I’ll Kevin Kline that thing. Delicious.” He nudges her again. “What about you? Think you could take—like, I dunno, a house cat?” 

She frowns, considering it. “I could probably outsmart one if I had to.” 

“Right?” Jimmy says. “Exactly. If it’s life or death.”

“Right,” Kim says, and her eyes twinkle, and she relents: “But, any animal?” 

“Sure!”

Kim laughs, shaking her head. “Go on then, fine, let’s hear it. A tiger.”

Jimmy shrugs. “I mean, I can shoot it, right?”

“Hah,” Kim says. “Obviously cheating.”

And Jimmy’s really smiling now, a big shit-eating grin. “Cheating?” he says, mock offended. “The tiger can have a gun, too, if the tiger wants a gun.”

“Okay, okay,” Kim says, chuckling. “What if it sneaks up on you?”

“I mean, come on, Kim, we have to agree on terms, right? A staged battle, it’s only fair,” Jimmy says, and he can already hear her groaning when he adds, “Me and the tiger each get time and money to prepare. So I’m coming in there in a full tank, guns blazing, just—” He drives his hand through the air, making sound effects. 

“God,” Kim says, and he can feel the vibrations of her laughing against his side. “This is so dumb.” 

“If the tiger asks for a tank, it can have one too!” Jimmy says loudly. “Fair’s fair.” 

“Okay, okay, I gotcha,” Kim says, and she’s grinning now, too. “So, like, a king cobra—”

“Right—”

“—and me and the snake each get as much time and money as we need to prepare—”

Jimmy nods rapidly. “I love it, I love it.”

“—or, I don’t know, a gorilla—” 

“Yes!” Jimmy says, jabbing his finger forward. 

“—and you tie a banana to a landmine, or something, throw that onto the battlefield right away—”

“—or a gas mask and some poison gas!” Jimmy says, and he drops his arm down from the back of the booth over Kim’s shoulders. “Yeah, you got it. That’d fuck that monkey right up.”

Kim snorts, pressing her face into his side, shaking her head. 

“See? Look out, animal kingdom,” he says softly. “Nothing can stop us.” 

And he leans back against the booth, sighing lowly. He stares out at the people eating in the restaurant, Kim a warm weight against his side. 

He doesn’t think about all the work waiting for him back at home, just like he’s sure Kim doesn’t think about the bar exam—and it’s just the two of them, propped against each other, watching the other diners, watching the lights of the cars along the street outside, each pretending not to think. 

* * *

“Enough left for another cup, Jimmy?” Ernie asks, stepping up beside Jimmy in the breakroom kitchenette the next day.

Jimmy swills the remaining coffee around inside the pot and frowns. “Yeah. Dunno if you wanna chance it, though. It’s kinda gross.” 

Ernie shrugs and holds out his empty mug. 

So Jimmy fills the offered cup. “We need Kim back, really,” he says. “She has the knack. Refuses to teach me.” He makes a _tsking_ noise with his teeth. “But hopefully before she gets her results and leaves us for good, huh?”

Ernie laughs softly, as if not sure how to respond. 

“Bar exam’s today, actually,” Jimmy says lightly. He drops down at the table and rubs his eyes. “I mean, day one of two.”

“Oh, wow,” Ernie says. He perches in the chair next to Jimmy. “Two days? Must be tricky.”

“Mm,” Jimmy says, feeling a twinge in his stomach. “I mean, if _she’s_ that stressed?” He whistles. 

And Ernie just laughs again, then nods. “Right,” he says. He takes a sip of his coffee, then sets his cup down on the breakroom table, but holds onto it. There’s a soft tinking noise as he taps the porcelain. Jimmy glances at his tie. Little zebras today. “So,” Ernie says, eventually. “Are you two, uh…?” He makes a gesture. 

Jimmy takes a quick sip of his coffee. Lowers his mug and shrugs. “Yeah, I mean…” And then he thinks, fuck it, and nods firmly. “Yeah. We are.” Somehow actually saying it makes something swell in his chest, and he grins at Ernie. 

“She seems, uh, cool,” Ernie says, smiling back. “She’s pretty.” 

“Yeah,” Jimmy says brightly, and he feels warm toward Ernie suddenly, too, like he wants to take the kid out for ice cream or something and just talk for a few hours, but instead he just says, “She is cool, yeah,” and he smiles. 

The smile stays on his face for a long time. He keeps forgetting it’s there—and then he catches himself reloading a paper tray or putting in an order with the printer and grinning.

* * *

He doesn’t end up hearing from Kim at all that day. He’d awoken that morning to find her already gone, though it wasn’t even light out yet, and he’d showered and dressed then caught an early bus into the office—the first time he’d made it to the breakroom before the others in weeks. He’d cracked open a textbook and tried to jot down some notes, sitting there, head in his hand.

They rehearse persuasive strategies in his public speaking course that evening, poor Ellis sweating and struggling at the front of the group. Afterwards, Jimmy goes to the library, printing off a sample speech from one of the library computers, and then riding the bus home again, the vibrations drifting from the window through his skull. 

That night, he’s inside the convention center, an enormous room filled with row after row of desks, each topped with a blue book. The blue dots of the blue books go on and on so far he can’t see the end of them. He tries to find his space, looking for his name on the sheets, but none of the names are his—though he can’t exactly read them anyway. It’s just dense black writing, scribbled shorthand. 

In the distance he sees his mother walking between the desk rows, stopping and pausing like she would stop and pause on their trips when he was a kid, pointing to something, whispering some deduction about the old man across the street or the woman down the grocery aisle. 

She slows and starts now, flitteringly, like a butterfly. 

Behind him, he can hear a hollow knocking sound, a knuckle on glass. He turns back, but there’s nothing there—just more blue books and more brown desks, on and on into darkness.

And then the knocking is behind him again— _soon_ —and he jerks around, and his mother is Kim, sitting with her back to him at a distant table, her head in her hand, asleep—and he starts rushing to her— _soon, soon_ —and the knocking is growing louder, and louder, and loud—

He wakes up. He’s twisted in his bed, tangled in the sheets. He peels his face from the damp pillow and looks at his bedside clock: three-thirty. He exhales.

Then, loud: another knock at his door. 

What? he thinks, still sleep-thick, wiping a hand over his face and peering into the darkness. He reaches for his lamp and thumbs it on, spilling yellow light through the apartment, bringing the real world back into focus.

Another hollow knock. Jimmy slips out of bed and pads over to the door, sliding the chain off the hook and then opening it. 

Kim stands in the threshold, dark under the landing, and behind her all the hazing streetlamps and the quiet buzzing of the street. She doesn’t say anything, just twists past him and into his apartment. He closes the door behind her and turns to face the room. 

“Sorry, I was—” he starts, and he leans his back against the door and wipes the base of his palm over his damp bangs. Kim’s standing in his kitchen, staring at seemingly nothing, frozen. She’s wearing one of the old shirts she sleeps in, but with jeans, like she just threw them on before coming here. “Jesus, Kim, is everything okay?”

She nods slowly. 

“How’d it go?” he asks. 

And she looks to him now, eyes meeting his. “Hm?”

“Don’t tell me you walked here, again,” he says, weakly, but as soon as he’s finished saying it, Kim tosses her car keys onto his tiny kitchen table, where they land, skittering, on the wood. 

And then she moves to him fluidly, hands coming up to his chest, palms cold through the worn fabric of his shirt. She kisses him hard, and her lips are cold, too, nearly frozen, and then she pulls back. In her shoes, with him barefoot, she’s almost as tall as him. She lays her forehead on his own, breathing surprisingly heavily. 

“Went well, huh?” Jimmy murmurs, lowering his hands to her waist and resting them there. 

And she’s kissing him again, hard and choppy, arrhythmic, her hands fisting in his shirt. She pulls him closer briefly and then presses him back against the door, and his hipbone hits the door handle with a sharp burst of pain. He grunts, and she releases his shirt, the cotton loose and stretched, and slips a hand down over his stomach and beneath his boxers.

“Oh, hello,” he says, chuckling and smiling at her, but Kim doesn’t smile back. 

She starts to move her palm over him, dry and rough and almost painful. He hisses, drawing his hips back, but she keeps going, faster and and rougher and now definitely painful, sandpaper on his skin, and Jimmy grabs her wrist.

“Kim,” he says, tightening his grip. “Kim, Kim.” 

And then she looks up and seems to actually see him again. Her face breaks, suddenly opening, and he knows at once that the exam didn’t go well after all. 

She folds into the crook of his neck, tucking her cold forehead into the sweat damp corner of skin. He presses his hand to her hair and then stands there, frozen, as Kim starts silently shaking, violent tremors that seem to run out of her and through his own skin. Gasps that he can feel against his neck but can’t hear. 

He feels like he’s back in that dream again, and the only sound around him is the hollow thudding of some distant hand. He knows that this time it’s just his own heart in his ears, and that the rest of the world is quiet. So he leans against the door and presses Kim closer to him, his lips moving in silent patterns, his thumb tracing soft words on her spine. 

Some time later, she pulls back. 

He loosens his hold and peers into her eyes. “What happened?” he murmurs.

Kim draws away from him, and he drops his arms. She sits down at his kitchen table, staring at the wooden surface, expression flat. Jimmy looks to his cupboards, wishing he had tea, wishing had something other than beer and coffee. He fills a glass with water and sets it down in front of her, then heads to the bedroom. Spots his jeans on the floor and pulls them on quickly, then drags a spare chair back with him and wedges himself into the corner of the table, opposite Kim. 

They sit for minutes in silence, until Kim reaches for the glass of water and takes a long drink then sets it down. 

“What happened?” Jimmy asks again, studying her face. She doesn’t look at him. 

“I fucked it up,” Kim whispers, eyes drilling into the wooden surface. 

He slowly shakes his head, back and forth. Then he just says, “How?”

And she looks at him now, almost in surprise. “How?”

He shrugs, but gives her a small smile. “Yeah,” he say easily. “How’d you fuck it up?”

She just exhales slowly. Her eyes are wide, as if she’s seeing something really far away. “God, Jimmy, d’you know, I can’t even remember what the questions were now.” She flexes her right hand, stretching out her fingers then relaxing them. “But I knew it would happen. I blanked. First question, I’m reading it, and I guess I psyched myself out because I just—” she raises her eyebrows, as if stunned at herself “—I didn’t know. I didn’t know any of it.”

Jimmy frowns. He shifts closer. “What did you do?”

She looks down at her hand now, still flexing her fingers. “I waited,” she says simply. Another finger flex. “And waited. For half an hour. And hoped that I’d remember something.”

“And did you?”

Eventually, she nods. “Yes, but—” 

“So, that’s not so bad—”

“—but after lunch I ran over time for an answer, I was so caught up writing I didn’t even hear the bells, I used up half the time for the next essay, so I had to—” and he can see her breathing, faster and faster.

He rests a hand on hers. “Kim,” he says.

She meets his eyes. 

“You need to sleep,” he says lightly. He glances over at the clock. “It’s almost four.”

She makes a low, groaning noise. 

He squeezes her hand. “Want me to drive you home?” 

“Home?” she says, brow creasing. 

Jimmy wonders how it’s possible that she still has to go through another full day of this. Still has to sit down again in that room in—hell, in just a few hours. “I dunno how long it takes to get to the convention center from here,” he murmurs, “and it’s all the way across town.”

“Oh,” she says, and then she nods. “Right. Okay.”

“Okay,” he repeats. 

He picks up her keys from the table, and they head out to her car, moving slowly across the complex and then settling into the darkened interior of Kim’s Taurus. Jimmy clicks his seatbelt on and turns to her. 

“Don't worry if you fall asleep on the way, I’ll just carry you inside, okay? Like Rambo,” he says, doing half-hearted bicep flex before he turns the key in the ignition. 

“Hah,” Kim says softly. She leans against the passenger window, her forehead pressed to the glass.

They drive through the empty city streets, past the vacant taxis and colorful delivery trucks of early morning, the stereo off and the wheels humming over the road. Jimmy darts glances sideways every so often, but Kim doesn’t sleep. 

She just sits there, eyes open, head against the glass. 

* * *

The next day, Jimmy waits in the evening light of the city plaza outside the convention center. He sits on one of the bright blue benches, holding a cooling coffee in one hand and a warming beer in the other. The beer’s in a brown bag, and condensation dampens the paper, seeping into his slacks before he notices and holds the bottle off to one side. 

Eventually, people start to emerge from the doors. Some are whooping and laughing and yelling to each other, but most are just worn-out zombies, and Kim is definitely one of the latter when he spots her—a rush of blonde hair between all the stooped heads. She moves with the masses, almost wayless. 

“Kim!” he calls, and he trots over to her on the edge of the drifting crowd. 

She looks up at him blankly, and then gives him a small smile. 

And Jimmy feels a bit stupid now, but he draws her away from the flow of the others. “Couple of options,” he says, holding out the coffee, then the beer, then the coffee again. 

Eventually, she reaches for the coffee, fingers covering his as she takes it slowly. “Thank you.”

“Congratulations,” he says. “Thought you might want to celebrate, you know?”

She nods, then glances down at the coffee in her hand as if already surprised to discover it there. 

Jimmy touches her arm gently. “You okay?”

She nods again. She stands there, folds her lips inward, then says: “I think I’m just empty.” 

Jimmy makes a soft noise. He looks out toward the thinning crowd then back to Kim. “Where’re you parked?” 

Kim points, and they head in that direction, following the flow of the others again. She bumps into his arm a couple of times as they move in between groups of sluggish people, past the bright, chlorine-scented fountain and out into the parking lot, where Jimmy spots Kim’s car and redirects her, nudging into her side. 

She gets into the passenger seat without saying anything. Just sits there and hands him over the keys and lowers her head against the window again, and it’s like nothing has changed since the night before—except, somehow, she looks even more hopeless having finished the exam than she did with it still ahead. Loose hairs spill from her bun. She doesn’t brush them from her face. Her eyes are glazed.

Jimmy stashes the unopened beer over in the backseat with the others, then slips the key into the ignition. But he lets it go, laying his hand on his knee. He tilts his head and studies her. “What are you thinking about?”

Kim makes a soft humming noise. “Sleep.”

He chuckles. “Yeah.” But he still doesn’t turn the keys, and Kim doesn’t close her eyes, either. “How’d today go?” he says. “Better?”

Kim just shrugs.

Jimmy doesn’t say anything for a long time, and then he exhales. “Home and sleep, then?” he says again, helplessly. 

“God, yes,” Kim says, finally closing her eyes, and Jimmy cranks the keys—but then her eyes snap open again. “No,” she says, putting her hand out over his on the gearstick. “Not yet. Let’s…”

He shifts back into neutral, sitting there with the car idling. “No?” 

“No,” Kim says softly. “God, I’m so damned tired, I can’t sleep. Let’s just…” She tips her head back against the headrest, eyes closed. Jimmy wonders what she’s picturing, but he doesn’t have to wonder for very long, because she says, “Let’s just go. Run away…make a new life.” 

“Yeah?” Jimmy says softly. 

She smiles slightly. “Mm,” she hums. “Over the border.”

“All right,” he says. 

She’s silent for a time, then she says, “I’ll sell tables.” 

Jimmy blinks. “Tables?”

“Sure, I’ll learn to make ‘em,” Kim murmurs, nestling her head back into the headrest. “How hard can it be? Flat top, four legs. Boom.” She opens her eyes and looks at him. “And you…you can catch fish.”

Jimmy makes a little face. “Fish?”

“Or I’ll catch the fish, too,” Kim says mildly. “I’ll be like that old man. Out there with the fish. Out on the water.”

Jimmy chuckles. “Okay.”

Kim makes a distant humming sound, staring out through the front window. And then, wistfully: “I can already hear the waves.”

“I think that’s blood in your ears,” Jimmy says. He laughs, and Kim joins in softly. “All right,” he says. “Yeah, let’s go somewhere.” He puts the car back in first gear and takes his hands off the wheel and holds them up to her. “Tell me where to go.” 

Kim waves a hand. “Just go.”

So Jimmy edges onto the accelerator and off the clutch and they drift forward, toward the line of blue parking bollards—

“No, no, stop,” Kim says, laughing, reaching over to grip his thigh, and he hits the brakes. 

“No?” he says, hands still up. “Not go?”

“Not go, not go,” she says, her laughter softening, and she releases his leg. “Not that way.”

“Okay, okay,” Jimmy says. “Which way?”

And she makes a show of peering at the parking lot around them. It’s slowly emptying. “All right, backwards this time—” 

“Got it,” Jimmy says, and he wedges the gearshift into reverse then starts rolling backwards, hands off the wheel, toward the line of cars behind them. “Which way—” 

“Left, left!” Kim says, reaching over— 

He grabs the wheel and whips the car suddenly to the left, then slams on the brakes, tyres screeching. He grins over at her.

A couple of people stare at them from inside a nearby car. Kim’s Taurus is stopped diagonally across a line of empty parking spaces, still idling in place. At the sight of the bystanders’ stunned faces, Jimmy waves a polite hand and shifts back into first gear and cruises away, through the rows of the parking lot and out onto the street. 

“Jesus, you’re a shit driver,” Kim says.

“Well, you know, my dad was a brick,” Jimmy says, grinning at her, but he slows to a slightly more careful stop at a set of red lights. 

As they wait, he leans over and hunts through the glovebox for a cassette. He pops one into the player and slowly turns the volume up, nodding his head along, grinning. Kim’s lips twitch as he cranks it higher and higher.

Someone behind them honks—the light’s on green—and Jimmy jams down the accelerator, getting out ahead of everyone and then shifting in front of the cars in the next lane. He sees a freeway onramp coming up, and he takes it. 

The traffic is moving smoothly, somehow, and Jimmy drifts between it all, following the roads out to the edge of the city. He turns the stereo up even louder, heavy guitars groaning against the cheap speakers. 

He doesn’t tell Kim that he has a speech to do tomorrow night, he doesn’t tell her that it’s worth half his grade and that he still has so much work to do, work that he’s been putting off and putting off— 

He just floors it, faster and faster, passing the other cars, curving in between lanes as Kim leans back beside him, glancing at him with bright eyes that flash beneath the street lamps.

Then the traffic thins completely, and the freeway opens before them. Kim cranks her window, and Jimmy winds his down, too. The wind whips through the car, snapping across the air like electricity. His bangs flutter against his forehead and into his eyes. Kim’s hair, freed from its bun, curls around her head, sticking to her lips as she smiles, but she just peels the threads away again and again, tucking gold behind her ears. 

Out the front window, Jimmy sees the blinking lights of a plane coming in to land, low over the freeway and down toward the airport. And he grins— _yes._

They drive on, the songs on the tape getting louder even though Jimmy hasn’t touched the volume. He lifts his left hand from the wheel and holds it out the window, flattening his fingers and palm. It feels like he should be able to stop the whole car with just this, just this one hand, and he cups the air then releases it, cups then releases it. The wind hits his forearm, fluttering like wings. 

In the distance, the dark mountains don’t seem to move at all. Streetlights flash past in bursts of noise, rushing fragments of sound, and the wind boxes his left ear, hollow. 

Out the window, he weaves his hand up and down. The air feels like a waterfall, like he’s shaping it with his palm, changing the way it flows from the land before them to the land behind them. It feels like they’re driving up into the night—driving up a dark stream, falling through the sky. 

* * *

Jimmy stops the car in the flat desert beyond the city, on the border of a long trail of lights. He idles for a moment then shuts off the engine, staring at the dark shape of Kim beside him. She doesn’t say anything. She hasn’t spoken since they left the city plaza. Just the two of them beside each other, and the stereo, and the wind. 

He opens his door and ducks out into the darkness. Kim follows, stepping off the dirt verge on the side of the road here and over the dry grass. Leaves crunch beneath his shoes, and he descends the sharp embankment, then looks back to make sure Kim’s still behind him—and she is, dropping down swiftly, sure-footed. 

He found it here a long time ago, back when he used to come out this way in the evenings, lonely nights at the Ramada Hotel. The enormous fence alongside the airport—with a gap, just there, in the wire. 

“We could get through that,” he says quietly, pointing. 

Kim looks to him. Her eyes are shining, and she smiles. It blazes on her face. 

And Jimmy’s relieved that she understands, that he’s not going to have to explain the idea, like he’d had to with Marco, once, waiting at the edge of a locked railyard. That he just wants to go in there, to be among it all, hidden in the darkness where he doesn’t belong, and everyone moving around him, heading out of the city, off into the night. 

But then Kim’s smile falters. She laughs softly, shaking her head. “God, I almost—” she says, and she breathes out, a shaky, stuttering thing. She presses her thumb and forefinger to her eyelids for a moment, then lowers her hand. “Jimmy,” she says warmly. 

And he smiles. “Yeah,” he says. 

“I—” she says, and she looks to the gap in the fence again. Out on the runway he can see the slowly moving lights of a grounded plane, red and white flashing on the wings. 

So Jimmy moves to the fence, feet crunching through the dry grass. He stops short. “Reckon that one’s coming toward us?” he says lightly.

Kim doesn’t say anything. 

There’s no warning signs he can see on the fence, but he taps the back of his hand on it tentatively, then, when it seems safe, weaves his fingers through. He stands there, watching the blinking lights until he feels Kim draw up beside him. She threads her fingers between the chainlinks too. He hears her sigh. 

The plane turns. The red lights grow brighter and brighter, flickering as they pass wind flags and distant poles, as the plane slowly faces the two of them. There’s a long silence, so long he wonders if there’s something wrong—but then the sudden rush of an engine, loud even from so far away. 

Vibrations run through the earth, first gentle and then harder, and Jimmy finds himself stepping backward, as if the plane is going to keep coming and coming and smash through the fence, and the engine groans, and the lights approach and approach and approach, and the ground shakes through his bones—but then, suddenly, the plane lifts from the runway, tugged upward. 

And Jimmy keeps moving backward, his feet uneven beneath him and Kim beside him, until he hits the steep embankment, leaning back against the earth and dirt and hard grass as the plane rushes far above them, the lights flashing on its wings and belly, screaming with a mechanical whine that seems to grow louder even as the plane gets further away.

The wind from it hits them late, shaking the fence, the wire creaking.

Jimmy twists onto his side, looking at Kim, and she's staring up at the empty sky, hair wild around her face. He feels a humming beneath his skin, like electricity, like he’s drunk. He laughs deliriously, and shakes his head, and says her name. 

And he wants to say something else—wants to tell her that she did it, that she’s done with it all now, and shouldn’t she be happier, shouldn’t she be _screaming_ —but she’s still not even looking at him—so instead he moves back up to the fence and grabs it and shouts for her, his voice cracked and sharp, and he almost thinks he can hear it echoing back to him, rolling over the runways. 

Beside him now: Kim, her hands on the fence, too. 

Jimmy calls out to the planes again, still no words, just harsh sounds and the maybe-echo of his voice over the cement. He laughs, and that seems to bounce back to him, too, buoyant.

And he looks to Kim again—at her eyes, dark and shadowed but still blazing with some unknown light, at her lips that fall open and then freeze— 

And he wants to say: _do it_ , Kim, for god’s sake just _do it_ —shout, and scream, and break through this damn fence right now, because you’ve been at this for years, years and years with no break and now it’s done—so come running over these dark runways, and get caught, and talk your way out of it with me and then scream and then run some more, hand in hand. 

But out near the buildings now: smaller lights, like cars. 

And Kim points to them. 

Jimmy lets himself buy into the game of it all, lets himself get caught up, even though there’s probably no way anyone could have seen them or heard them. He tugs on Kim’s hand and feels that childish rush of fear and adrenaline, and he laughs brightly, giddily, and the two of them scramble up the dirt bank and back to her car. 

* * *

“Shh—shh,” Kim hisses, wrestling with her key in the lock. Jimmy waits beside her, silent, but she glares over at him anyway. “Shh!”

He holds up his palms, grinning. She manages to wrench the door open, and as they move through the threshold he presses his hand into her back, and with his other he shuts the door behind them, and it slams— 

“Shh!” Kim hisses again. “Ellen—”

“Hi, Ellen!” Jimmy calls out, leaning forward, and Kim presses her hand to his mouth, looking down toward her roommate’s room. After a beat of silence, Jimmy nips at her palm, and she lifts her hand away and grins, then she kisses him, laughing against his lips. 

They move slowly toward Kim’s bedroom, trying to be quiet, but Jimmy hits his shin into the coffee table and yelps, and Kim giggles, holding him upright as he grabs onto his leg.

“No, go on without me—” Jimmy groans, pretending to push Kim away. 

“Shh, she’s gonna wake up—” Kim says, tugging on his arm

“She’s fine, let her hear—” 

“You don’t have to look her in the eye and ask for rent,” Kim says, but she’s grinning, and she finds his wrists and grabs them, one in each hand, pulling him back to the bedroom.

Jimmy stumbles after her, trying to keep his feet under him. “Wait—wait—”

And then they’re through the door. Kim pushes him up against the post-it note wall. The papers crunch up beneath his back, crinkling, and Jimmy chuckles into her mouth.

“Mmm—hang on,” he says, turning his head, and he reaches over to peel off a yellow one, but a dozen more come with it, a thread of snaking post-its. 

Kim gasps solemnly. “Oh no,” she whispers, dragging out the words. “There goes comm prop.”

Jimmy twitches his hand, but the chain dangles, stuck to his finger. 

She reaches out and snags it from him, tossing the ribbon of yellow behind her and murmuring, “I’m never gonna need that, anyway.” 

Then she’s kissing him again, pressing her thigh up between his, and Jimmy grabs her hips, digging his fingers into the soft flesh beneath her jeans. She tugs at his button-up, freeing it from his pants and then pulling it over his head—

“Stop—” Jimmy gasps, and he reaches for his collar, because he’s still wearing his tie from work, somehow, but Kim slows his hands. She weaves the red-striped fabric through her fingers, then pulls him toward the bed, tugging gently. 

He falls on top of her, knees either side of her hips, and Kim grunts. 

“You good?” he asks, pushing himself up.

Kim nods, staring at him. She loosens his tie slowly, unthreading the fabric, and then slips it over his head, dragging the rest of his shirt with it and throwing it all across the room. Jimmy watches his clothes land and then turns back to Kim, and she reaches for him, threading her fingers through his shirt-mussed hair, smoothing it out, and then pulling him down to kiss her. “Jimmy,” she murmurs, against his lips. 

“Hey—” Jimmy murmurs, and then he pulls back, smiling. “What happened to quiet, huh? You’re—mmph—” he leans down, kisses her again “—throwing me all over the place.” He runs his fingers up beneath Kim’s shirt, and then he’s pulling it over her head, tossing it away to join his clothes. 

“You were right,” she says, sitting up a little so he can undo the clasp of her bra. “She’ll live.” And Kim stares down at his hands as he trails his fingers back around to the front of her chest and slips her bra off.

“Mhm,” Jimmy says, softly. “But is that really living?” He rubs his thumb over a nipple, tracing little circles around it as it hardens, his mouth hanging open. And he settles back, still straddling Kim’s hips, and moves on to the other one, her chest rising and falling as they both watch his hands, dark against her pale breasts. 

“Think she’s got a little crush on you, you know,” Kim murmurs, after a while. She plays with the edge of his slacks, pulling them out and then letting the fabric lightly flick back onto the skin of his stomach. 

Jimmy laughs. “Oh yeah?” He shakes his head. “I dunno, always bragging about the law stuff? Reckon she’s got one on _you_.” He grins, lifting himself off Kim and rolling away so they can each shimmy out of their pants. “And I mean, come on, who wouldn’t?” he says lightly, as he moves back, waiting for her to throw her jeans aside and then settling back between her legs. “Look at you,” he says, staring down at her on the bedspread, the yellow light pooling in the hollows of her chest, in the rising peaks of her clavicle. He leans down to place a kiss directly on her breastbone, and then murmurs into it: “Wow.” 

“Shut up,” Kim says, and she tugs at his hair, pulling his head up to hers. She kisses him for a minute, then shifts her hips up, reaching between them. “C’mon, hurry up.” 

“Yeah,” Jimmy says, grinning. “Okay, yeah, I’m hurrying.” He positions himself, then sinks into her slowly and sighs, squeezing his eyes shut, pressing his forehead to hers. He holds still for a moment and exhales, breathing heavily, and says, “God, Kim, I could never…” He grunts, and clenches his teeth, and then starts moving. “You’re…I—” but he catches himself.

He swallows the next two words, kissing her instead. 

* * *

Jimmy wakes up first the next morning. He turns over in bed to see Kim curled toward him, her face relaxed and soft, glowing with the light that spills through the blinds they forgot to close last night. Her hair falls across the pillow, gossamer threads that dangle over her cheeks and move gently with her breath. Jimmy feels a tugging in his stomach, and he wants to reach out and rub a curl of hair between the pads of his fingers, but he doesn’t. 

Eventually, he slips out of bed, hunting for his clothes and then pulling them on as he moves softly out into the living room. He shuts the door behind him with a gentle click, and picks up Kim’s phone to call HHM, leaving a message to say that he’s off sick, talking at just above a whisper and standing as far away from her door as the cord will let him. 

He’d dropped his backpack down by the door last night, and he grabs it now, hunting through for his public speaking notes and the sample speech he’d printed out weeks ago. He reads over it for a while, then gets up again, setting the coffee going, searching through the fridge for anything to eat. He finds a half-finished pizza from the last time he was here, still in the box, and he takes that with his coffee back into the living room. 

A little while later, Ellen emerges, already dressed for class, her bag slung over her shoulder. She glances at Jimmy, then at Kim’s closed door, and her face softens. “She okay?”

Jimmy nods. “Sleeping,” he says. “She was running on fumes, you know?” 

And for a moment he thinks he sees something like fear in Ellen’s face, but she shakes it away. She looks down at the pizza. “Can I have a slice?”

“Go for it,” Jimmy says, and he holds out the box.

She takes a piece, eating it in snatched bites while she finishes getting ready: packing up a sandwich, filling a travel cup with coffee, and then heading out the door. 

And Jimmy works, reading over the sample speech, hunting around for all his notes, trying to mould everything into some kind of cohesive shape with style and structure and persuasive strategies to make Professor Reiss happy. He slowly finishes the pizza and writes, turning over sheet after sheet. 

At noon, when Kim still hasn’t emerged, he heads to the kitchen and puts on a fresh pot of coffee. Rifles in her junk drawer for some menus. Flicks through a few idly, then he sets them on the counter and heads towards her room. 

He opens her door carefully, peering inside. She’s still asleep, curled up under the covers, and after getting the sun all morning it’s hot, almost stuffy, so he pads over to the thermostat and adjusts the temperature a little then turns around. 

Kim’s eyes are wide open, gazing at nothing.

“Oh! You’re up,” he says dumbly. He smiles. “Morning—well, almost.”

Kim just nods, still not looking at him. She’s staring at the post-it wall, at the ribbons of color, and he turns between it and her and then gives a soft laugh.

“Everything okay?” he asks. He turns to the wall again. He looks at the crumpled paper from last night, at the missing strand of yellow notes. He looks at the incomprehensible letters that cover the colors, abbreviations and secret meanings. Somehow containing everything she needs to know. 

When he turns back, Kim’s eyes are finally on him. 

Her pupils shift between his own, left and right, careful precise movements, like she’s counting something down. Her gaze is dark and cold. 

Somehow it’s as if she’s still not really looking at him at all. 

But her words are definitely meant for him. They crack through the room like thunder, flashing bright before he hears them: “Why are you lying to me?”


	5. Burning

“Why are you lying to me?” The words hang in the air like ice. 

Jimmy opens his mouth. Kim’s eyes tunnel into him, long and dark and empty. His first thought—Lying to you? I’m not _lying_ to you—dries in his throat. He swallows tightly. His mind reaches, without even thinking about it, for that eternal wellspring of smooth excuses, the ones that smell like late nights and black ice on cement. They’re already starting to float up: I was waiting until you’d finished your exam; I was going to tell you today; I didn’t want to bother you. 

Another voice says: find out what she knows first, don’t give anything away, don’t admit to anything— 

So he stands there, frozen, his mouth open, his pulse hammering. 

Kim cuts through his thoughts with a knife-bladed sigh. She shrugs off the covers and twists her legs out of bed, then bends low to pick up her shirt from where it landed on the carpet last night. She pulls it on over herself unselfconsciously, and stands and moves to her wardrobe, finding underwear and jeans and dressing like he’s not there. 

Jimmy watches. 

And Kim passes him, brushing close against the corner of her bed to avoid even touching, then she’s out through her bedroom door. 

Something snaps. “Kim!” he calls, and he hurries after her into the living room. He’s fast enough that he catches her moving past the coffee table, catches her glancing down at his college notes, her profile flat and unchanged. She keeps going, heading smoothly through into the kitchen. He stops at the counter. 

She searches through a cupboard and pulls out an empty glass. Moves to the sink and twists the faucet then holds the glass under the water. They both watch it slowly fill. She turns off the faucet. 

“Kim,” Jimmy says, again. 

She stands there, full glass of water in her hand, staring into the sink as if there’s still something to watch. Her hair spills over the shoulders of her striped shirt, over the fragile arc of her neck. 

He tears his eyes away and stares down at his hands instead. Stares down at them lying flat on the cold countertop. White on the grey metal. “Listen, Kim, you’re right,” he says to the back of his fingers, then he looks up. “Okay, you’re right. I haven’t told you what’s been going on.” 

Kim turns to him now. She raises her eyebrows. It’s the only part of her expression that changes at all. The rest of her face is still flat, almost expressionless. Though maybe there’s a quiet downturn in the corner of her eyes—something like betrayal, maybe. 

It stops him short again. “Kim, I—” He hears the little strangled sound that follows his words as if it’s somebody else making it. 

Kim’s eyebrows inch higher. 

And Jimmy bunches his hands into fists on the counter. He opens his mouth again and gets ready to say—what, exactly? I want to be a lawyer? 

He hears that strangled sound again, and Kim’s eyes narrow. Her gaze bores into him, hollowing him out as he tries to stand upright against the gale of it. His breath comes faster—quick, he thinks, quick quick—but he already knows it’s going to sound stupid, already knows it’s always sounded stupid, already knows it’s going to sound like he’s doing it for _her_ or he’s doing it for _Chuck_ or he’s just doing it because there’s nothing else here for him to do.

And what—he’s gonna tell Kim that he’s passionate about defending what’s good, or about telling right from wrong, or about mankind’s greatest goddamn achievement? Some imitation of his brother, or of _her_. A guy who doesn’t know how to get their respect unless he becomes them— 

His pulse knocks against his jaw. 

Even if he does force the words out, even then, it’ll only be to finally face the horrible pity that he knows will appear in her eyes, anyway. Sympathetic, caring pity, or whatever it’ll be, as she shows him that becoming a lawyer has almost killed _her_ , shows him this just by existing, shows him that one night of good sex and sleep has barely budged the bags beneath her eyes, barely lifted the pallor in her cheeks. 

Barely changed the empty, soft-boned way she stands, glass of water untouched in her hand, waiting to hear his worthless explanation of what he’s been doing these last few months. As if it’ll make a difference. 

But he gives one anyway, a metaphorical step forward, inching across the space between them: “I’m…I’ve been going back to school.” 

Kim’s face finally shifts now, her eyes widening, and, there it is, the _disbelief_. 

His stomach roils. “Just, you know—community college—” he says quickly, trying to shift her expression— 

She holds up her hand. 

And he quietens.

“Back to school,” she says, voice measured and flat. “Okay.” And then, eyes still wide with disbelief, she gives a helpless-looking shrug. “Why did you lie to me?” 

He shakes his head. 

“Jimmy.”

He sighs. “Kim, look at yourself,” he says softly. He runs his hand through the air, down the length of her, then lets it flop again to the countertop with a thud. “You’ve been so busy. Could barely even keep your eyes open most days.” He inhales, waits, then adds: “You didn’t need this on your plate.” 

Her eyebrows spike again. “My _plate_?”

“You would’ve wanted to help—” 

“No,” Kim says sharply. “No. Jimmy, stop.”

So he stills. Steadying himself with the counter. He tries to look at her from afar, tries to see them both from afar, desperately searches for that familiar cold remove that lets him watch the jigsaw pieces fall into place. He imagines studying the two of them, facing off across the kitchen, him in yesterday's crumpled button-up, her in an old t-shirt and jeans and bare feet, hair still mussed from sleep. A fist closes in his stomach. 

But Kim just sighs. Soft, and precise: “Why did you _lie_ to me, Jimmy?”

Jimmy swallows. His pulse comes thready. He says, weakly, “I didn’t lie to you.” 

Kim’s eyes flash. She sets down her glass and steps towards him now. “No? So that marketing proposal for Howard, huh?” Another step closer. “The one you said you were brushing up on the fundamentals for?” 

“That wasn’t—you didn’t even really—” 

Kim almost flinches. “What?” she says, blinking. “I didn’t really what, Jimmy? I didn’t _hear_ it?”

Jimmy holds up his hands, palms out. “That’s not—” He huffs, and looks down again. Lowers his hands deliberately and presses his hands to the countertop again. Steadying, steadying. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he says, softly, and he looks back up at Kim. 

She raises her eyebrows, expectant. Go on. 

“I mean…I _was_ studying up on business stuff. Just, you know, not for Howard. For a class.”

Kim says, tone faux-bright, “Oh, so it’s not a lie, then?” 

He swallows, staring at her. 

“And all those nights after work, hm?” she continues, giving him a prompting nod. 

He can’t say anything; he shakes his head. 

“Barbecues at Chuck’s, or—Oh, hey Kim, Rebecca’s asked me around for dinner again, isn’t that great?” Kim says, voice sing-song, almost slipping into his accent. “Jeez, Kim, and you’re just so busy you won’t _notice_. Hell, I’ll use the same excuse twice!” She steps closer, until her hips bump against the counter, jabbing her hand forward with each point as if searching for his heart. “I tried calling you, Jimmy. Even stopped by once.” She breathes out sharply through her nose, staring up at him, muscles threading the side of her neck. “And the next day, you spouted some bullshit about Thai restaurants. Couldn’t even _look_ at me. But, sure, Jimmy, sure! You never lied to me!” 

Jimmy exhales. 

“So, wow, yeah, thanks for keeping it off my plate,” she says, waving a hand around. “Thanks so much. Back to school, that’s—why couldn’t you just _tell_ me that?” She gestures violently. “Why? Guess it was so much better for me to keep avoiding it, keep…God, I thought—” She presses her hands to her face now, chest rising and falling. There’s ink stains on her fingers, black and blue. She lowers her hands, stepping back and turning away. Speaks to him obliquely, as if she’s addressing the sink instead. “D’you know, I kept expecting to see you one morning with your arm in a sling?” Her voice is softer now, too. Cautious. “Or a neck brace? Or—or, Jesus, to not see you at all. Just find out from _Chuck_ you were in the hospital—” 

A sharp dig in his stomach, and he inhales. “Kim,” he says, quickly, trying to get in, “Kim, I would never—”

“—or even worse, find out that you’d been _arrested_ again, and maybe this time…maybe this time…” She finally looks to him again, her brow is turned down now, and her eyes are filled with pity already. Filled with horrible, disgusted pity. She exhales harshly. “And maybe this time that’d be it,” she says. “No more magic rescues left. No more miraculous big brothers to bend the rules just for you. No more special treatment for Jimmy McGill.” 

Jimmy clenches his teeth. He presses his knuckles against the hard countertop. Breathes around the blade that’s appeared between his ribs, cold and hard and unyielding. 

Maybe it’s a blade he put there himself. Maybe it’s been there this whole time, trying to cut out that piece of him—trying to hack away at his insides and leave only the clean parts, cauterised and sterile. And all for—what, for _this?_ For his hands, pale and bony, pressed to Kim’s countertop, wrists bare. A year of straight-and-narrow mailroom work, and months of college, months of no sleep and study and bus rides and listening—and still that old skin clings to him.

And everyone still sees it clinging there, still sees it no matter how hard he tries to wash it off. No matter how many hair cuts he gets or new shirts he buys or new words he learns. 

And everyone will _always_ see it. Even, apparently— 

He looks up, cold. Studies her as she stands before him, with her sleep-dark brow and folded lips. With her shirt tugged on unevenly, the collar wide, left shoulder starting to peek out. With the sharp lines in her neck, on her face. And he finally says, quietly, “I’m just doing what you told me to do, Kim.”

Her eyes cut to him. “What?” 

And stronger: “I’m just doing what you told me to do.” He moves, stepping past the counter now, getting closer. “I’m just doing what you wanted. Fitting in around you. Taking what I can get. Never talking about anything.” 

She blinks. “I never said that.” 

He folds his arms, boxing her in. Lifts his eyebrows expectantly. 

“Jimmy,” she says warily. 

“You made it pretty damn clear that if I wanted—” he waves a hand between them “—any of this, if I wanted your scraps, I had to bend to fit whatever twisted little gaps you left in your life.” 

Kim squares up in front of him. “My scraps?”

“Sure! Little movie here, little sleepover there. Whatever you can spare. Handouts.” 

“Jimmy, Jesus,” she says, reeling back. Her eyes are briefly vulnerable, hurt. She shakes her head, slowly, then says, “So you’re blaming _me_? You lie to me for months and somehow that’s _my_ fault?”

He shrugs, hoping it comes out as casually as he’s aiming for, even as his pulse drums against his neck. 

She laughs, ugly and light. “First I’m too _busy_ and now it’s what I secretly wanted? Seriously?”

Another light shrug. It’s hard to keep looking her in the eyes, but he does it anyway, his jaw clenched. He keeps his gaze trained on hers as she slowly shuts hers off, the vulnerability vanishing again. It’s easier to stare with it gone. Like staring at a wall. 

Her next words come icy and sharp: “When have I lied to you, Jimmy? Ever?”

He opens his mouth—

But Kim continues, spluttering, “When—hell, Jimmy, when have I ever been anything less than honest about our relationship?”

Relationship? He blinks. “Honest? What!?” A bitter laugh escapes. “You mean never _talking_ about it? Is that what you mean by _honest_?” He shakes his head, grinning. “God, relationship. What am I to you, anyway? Go on, tell me. _Honestly_.”

Kim stands before him, suddenly small, her mouth frozen, half open. He’s so close he can see her pulse, can see it strumming along the corded muscles up her neck. 

“Yeah, real honest,” he says softly. “Good job, Kim.” He steps away from her now and turns, moving back into the living room. “How many of my clothes are here, huh? And my cereal in the kitchen? My shit in your cabinets? Want me to go grab my razor and toothbrush real quick so you can pretend they haven’t been in there for months?” 

“Jimmy.”

He whips around, facing her again. 

Kim, who’s been following him, stops. 

And he holds out his palms. Gives a long sigh that comes out shakier than he’d hoped. Gestures to the frayed and fraying thing between them. “What is this, Kim?”

She stares at him. She gives no sign she’s even heard, other than her breath coming slightly faster. Slightly more unevenly. 

“What are we?” he presses after a moment, softer and more helpless. It kills him how desperate his voice sounds. How it snaps and breaks over the next words: “Give me something. Please. Something more than—friends.” 

“Of course we’re more than friends,” Kim says curtly.

“Yeah?” he says, eyebrows up. He can hear the echo of her voice when she introduced him to her professor— _my friend, Jimmy_ —and he sneers. “So what, then? Tell me.” 

She’s still frozen, completely motionless, other than her chest rising and falling. Then she swallows. After a long moment, she says, “Jimmy, you already know…” 

“Do I?” he says harshly, into the quiet. “Do I? What do I know?” 

Her eyes drill into his. It’s just the sound of her breathing. Up and down, in and out.

“Say it,” Jimmy whispers, after a long time. And there’s that desperate voice again, slipping out before he can stop it: “Just _say_ it. Give me something, Kim. Anything.” 

The silence stretches long between them. A silence like so many other silences: like Kim with her mouth shut before a chain-link fence; like Kim stroking his chest in bed, brushing away unspoken words; like Kim at a graduation party, quiet beneath the low splashing of a pool. Like knees touching beneath blankets, like Christmas outside his apartment, like voices down phone lines. 

Like Kim beside him in the driver’s seat over a year ago, as they returned to the lights of Albuquerque. 

And then, finally, she speaks. “What are you even doing here, Jimmy?” she says flatly. “Just going after me so you can win some game? What’s the point?”

He sees the distraction for what it is. He swallows around the acid that rises in his throat, tries to keep it down. Says it gently instead, “Jesus, Kim, you really can’t, can you?” 

She closes her eyes. “Jimmy.”

He remembers thinking about his name in her mouth, once. About how with just those two-syllables she could say everything. The hum in the middle, the rising tone at the end. 

Hell, maybe he was kidding himself. Maybe it had never meant anything more than his name.

His lips twitch, and he steps forward. “Got nothing, huh?” he says, mocking or desperate or somewhere in between. “Do you…” He exhales sharply, then another step forward. “Do you love me?”

Kim opens her eyes. Long tunnels with only darkness at the end. Long and silent. 

He says it again, vulnerable now, “Do you love me, Kim?”

“Don’t do that,” she says, finally. Her voice is cold, so cold. It hits him in the chest. 

But Jimmy smiles. “I’ll say it first, if you like,” he says, softly. “Do you want to hear it? I’ll say it right now.” 

“Don’t do that, Jimmy,” she whispers. “Don’t you dare.”

He stares into her eyes. There’s nothing there. 

She stands before him, quiet and desolate, a long stretch of empty sand. 

Like television snow. 

Like white noise, drifting. 

“Yeah,” he says, throwing down bitter fires now, dark fires between them. “Yeah, and I’m the one lying.” He moves to the coffee table, swipes his notebooks and papers into his backpack and zips it up, the teeth buzzing, then slings it over his shoulder. 

Her apartment seems small—small and hollow. He stares toward her bedroom, where there’s a drawer half-filled with some of his clothes, just-in-case. To the bathroom. Then back to her. 

His grip tightens on the strap of his bag. “I’ll see you around, Kim.” 

She doesn’t look at him as he leaves. 

* * *

Jimmy drops his backpack to the ground outside her apartment with a thud. A punctuation mark. He leans clumsily back against the wall beside her door, and then slowly slides down it, his knees rising up to frame his head. His breath comes fast. 

It’s stupid hot, because of course it is, the midday sun trapped in the square apartment complex like an oven. He knows Kim must’ve heard the heavy sound of his bag landing, knows she must’ve heard the scrape of him sliding down the wall.

He waits for the noise of the lock turning in the door beside him. Waits for the noise of the latch being drawn. 

It never comes.

So, in his mind, he goes back inside. He pulls the door open again, and steps through, and tells her the truth—the whole truth, nothing but. 

That he’s going to get his degree, that he’s going to take the LSAT and get into law school and graduate just like her, in a red-and-black gown. And sit the bar exam, and climb up from the mailroom and step out onto the upper floors of HHM. 

He tells her that this dream feels right, sometimes, when he lets it, in a way he can’t explain. That he can see himself doing it like he’s never seen himself doing anything else. Can see himself getting information out of a witness, can see himself convincing a jury—or, more than that, can actually feel himself doing it, not just imagine some colorful image of himself in the role. That he _likes_ the idea of it. 

He tells her that he’s sorry, he tells her that he was just scared. 

Then he remembers the disbelief on her face. The horrible, cutting disbelief at the thought of him going back to college. He tips his head back and his skull hits, hard, against the wall. Ripples of pain the spread out from behind his eyes.

And so then, in his mind, he goes inside and he lies some more. Says that she was right, that he’s just been in it for the challenge, just to see if he could crack her defences. Says that he doesn’t know how she can expect him to be honest with her when she’s never honest with him, when she never tells him anything. Says that this whole year of dancing around, of back and forth and push and pull, hasn’t been worth it. Says that seeing her work so hard and so tirelessly without ever expecting it of him, without ever judging him for not doing the same, hasn’t ended up pushing him to match her— 

Because he can’t really think of enough lies to make that scenario play out long enough.

He just thinks of that last look on her face, that last dark and burned look.

He stares up at the sky, big and blue as ever, mocking him. 

* * *

His phone rings while he’s hunting for his useless public speaking notes in his apartment that afternoon, his bangs damp with sweat, clock ticking down to the stupid presentation that’s still approaching this evening. 

It’s three rings before he gets to it—sharp and shrill and right to his bones. 

He picks up the receiver and waits. Listens intently to the silence on the other end of the line, to his own uneven breaths bouncing back to him. 

“…Jimmy?” 

“Chuck?” Jimmy says, blinking. 

His brother’s voice is sharp. “You’re not in the office.” 

Jimmy closes his eyes. Exhales through his nose and wipes his hand over his damp forehead. Christ. “No,” he says. “I took a sick day.”

“Ah,” Chuck says, voice crackling. “Okay.” 

And is it just his imagination, or can he hear that creeping doubt in Chuck’s voice now, too? Like it’s infecting everyone. Jimmy grits his teeth, holding the receiver with his shoulder and ear and dragging his backpack up between his knees to hunt through it again, just in case. 

“Well, I’ve been looking for you,” Chuck says mildly. “Have you spoken with Mom recently?” 

Jimmy blinks again. “Mom?” he says, pulling scrunched up notes from the bottom of the bag. “No, I haven’t.” 

“Okay,” Chuck says—and again there’s that almost-tone of disbelief. 

Jimmy pauses, paper half unfolded in his hands. “Why?”

A long silence, then crackling: “I should let her tell you.” 

“What, Chuck?” he says shortly. Back to the search—still nothing, still nothing. “Tell me what?” 

After a long silence, his brother continues, warier, “She had some news from her doctor last month. I’ve been checking in. When I phoned her last night she seemed…agitated.”

Agitated? Jimmy thinks. What is she, a damn cat? Mom can take care of herself. “Okay,” he says, instead. He stills his hands again, dropping the useless sheets of notes to the floor. 

“But if you say you haven’t spoken with her…” Chuck adds. 

He huffs. “No, I haven’t.”

“Well,” Chuck says, after another beat. “If she calls, just…tread carefully for once, all right, Jimmy?” 

Sure, Jimmy thinks, tread carefully. Thanks Chuck. I’ll try not to tell her to go fuck herself then, huh? But he doesn’t say it. He grunts out an agreement and slams down the receiver, then goes back to his search, dragging old notes from six weeks ago out from the mess at the bottom of his backpack, not looking at the borders of them too closely, just glancing once and then tossing them aside. 

* * *

It’s as hot as ever in the public speaking classroom that evening, the air conditioning working overtime but losing. Jimmy feels like his skin has trapped the sun from outside Kim’s place and now it’s coming off him in waves. Like stored energy. 

He licks his lips and looks back down at the bright glass of the overhead projector. “We needed visual aids, so here you go,” he says. He straightens the transparency on the glass, lining it up so the writing is horizontal. Then he turns from the display on the white screen to the other students. “Can you guys read that?” 

Professor Reiss, at the front of the group, gives him a gesture—half encouraging, half reproving. Continue. Your time is now. 

Jimmy nods and swallows. His throat is dry. He picks up his sheet of speech notes from the table beside him, glances at it once, then puts it down again. Stares out at the group, arranged sporadically around the familiar horseshoe of desks, their expectant faces all trained on him. He blinks, and says, “Uh, lights?” 

Sam gets the lights. She widens her eyes to him before she flicks the switch, and then it’s dark. 

“Right, well,” Jimmy says, and he turns to look up at the screen. 

Looks up at the magnified projection of the transparent foil, where this morning he’d written with brutal optimism in neat bullet points: _Get degree; LSATs; Law school; Bar exam; Lawyer._

He clears his throat and looks, quickly, away. “So,” he says, out to the room. “So, when you asked us this back in May, Professor, I was pretty stumped.” He flashes her a grin. “Why are we here? Why am _I_ here?” A shrug. “I mean, hell, I’d just followed the room number on my timetable.” 

There’s a soft patter of kind laughter. 

Jimmy starts to pace, and he sees himself pass, shadowed, over the bright projection, a flickering darkness over the words. He slows and watches his shadow slow, too. Watches it hide the writing. _Get degree; LSATs; Law school; Bar exam; Lawyer._

“Why am I here?” he says again. He lets the silence drag for a moment, and then he steps on again, out of the light, and looks back at the others. “That’s the big question, huh? The sixty-four thousand dollar question?” 

Heavy silence. He clears his throat and turns back to the projection. What was the point of it? Visual aid? He was gonna talk about—what? _Get degree; LSATs; Law school; Bar exam; Lawyer._

His mouth dries out. He licks his lips, his tongue sticking to the surface. Looks out to the small, cramped room. “So, anyway,” he says. “Here. What is _here_ , right, Professor? That’s what you want? Define the terms. Okay. _Here_ is the Central New Mexico Community College.” He claps once, soft and hollow. 

On the screen behind him, the shadow of his clapping hands, fluttering. He claps again, soft, watching the shapes, and then drops his hands, clearing the text. _Get degree; LSATs; Law school; Bar exam; Lawyer._

And isn’t that enough? he thinks. The words he couldn’t say earlier. Written up there in sharp black letters. As neat as he could make them. As precise as he could make them. And I finally wrote them down, for God’s sake, _isn’t that enough?_

He turns back to the group. They stare at him, eyes wide with pity, with a horrible pity, and he feels something stab next to his heart—did he say that bit out loud?

He scans them, quickly, and tries to swallow— 

No. His mouth even seems glued shut, now. He _’_ s suffocating, choking, and he forces his mouth open, lips dragging apart. Inhales, catches his breath, then laughs.

“Hah,” he says, scratchy and dry. He wipes his hand over his lips, then over his forehead, brushing aside his bangs. “Hah, look at me up here.” He gives a soft laugh, shaking his head. Sees himself from the outside, standing in front of everyone, sweating. Another weak laugh. “Look at me. It’s like, uh. Optical poptitude!”

Nothing. Someone shifts in their chair. 

“Optical poptitude? From _Punchline_?” he says, into the silence. “No?” He swallows. “Tough crowd.” 

He licks his lips again. He wishes he had water. His bangs fall slowly down over his eyes, sweat-damp and thready. He reads over his list on the white screen. _Get degree; LSATs; Law school; Bar exam; Lawyer._

And sees the guy standing before them in his white button-up. He’s not Tom Hanks in _Punchline_ at all—he’s Jimmy Stewart before the Senate, filibustering his heart out. Standing there desperate, voice lost, eyes wide. 

What had Mr. Smith cared so much about, anyway? Something about Boy Scouts? Boy Scouts and camps and letters? He’d been at it for hours, somehow. With Jean Arthur there, up on the balcony, watching. 

Jimmy looks to the window. He runs a hand over his bangs and remembers Kim doing the same thing, trailing her cold fingertip above his eyebrows. Cold with the water he’d splashed there from his glass. 

Staring now at the bright sunlight of the campus, the window striped with the shadows of leaves, he can see her clearly, can see her mouthing along with the film: _I guess this is just another lost cause…all you people don’t know about lost causes._

He opens his mouth and—

—nothing. 

The bright bulb of the projector flares in the corner of his eye. He realizes he’s blocking the light yet again, that he’s stepped back in between it and the screen. 

And, at the bottom of his vision, he catches sight himself. He looks down now, really looks down. At yesterday’s white shirt, still creased from Kim’s floor, still creased from the wind and the running and the post-it walls of last night. 

And, there across it, his own writing. The careful words of his bullet-point plan, the letters smudged, shifting purple-blue where the Sharpie traced lighter over the plastic. His answer to the big question, laid out over top of him in fragmented words—half of _LSAT_ , the middle of _Law school_. Some incomprehensible version of _Lawyer_ , rippling over his belt.

And the rest, gone, nothing. Scattered. 

He feels a hand touch his shoulder and he jerks. 

It’s Professor Reiss. In her oversized brown blazer and humidity-swelled brown bob. 

Somebody flicks on the lights, bright and blue above them. Flickering first, then steady.

“James,” Reiss says, quietly, and then, “Jimmy.” When he looks to her, she smiles. “This is a college class, not an interrogation.” She turns off the overhead projector, extinguishing the dark words on his chest. “I don’t _want_ to fail you.” 

“No?” he says. He tries for a hoarse laugh. “So—I passed, then?” 

She chuckles, but shakes her head slowly. After a thoughtful moment, she gestures to the small group of students. “You know, we were all sorry to miss you at rehearsals last weekend.”

“What?” 

Reiss nods sympathetically. “We missed you,” she says, and then she studies him. “Maybe you’re not even over that bug quite yet.”

Jimmy remembers his lie now, with sickly clarity. What had he done instead of going? God, he doesn’t even know. Sat silently beside a studying Kim, probably.

Reiss is still speaking: “…were a big help. I know Ellis here made some major breakthroughs.”

Ellis shoots Jimmy a thumbs up, his thumb poking out from a hole in his sweatshirt.

“But, I think…” and Reiss pauses now, worrying her lips. Then she says, “Let’s just count this one as your rehearsal, huh? Go for a take two?” She stares at him with wide eyes, waiting. 

Jimmy croaks, something like, “Okay.” He sits down at the closest desk, heavy and sudden. Laughs to himself, a scratchy, hopeless thing that he can barely hear. Jeez, you’ve really lost it now Jimmy, says the Marco-like voice that always seems to drift into this damn classroom. What happened to the king; what happened to Miles Davis? Forget the trumpet, that was barely even jazz. 

“So we’ll fit you in at the end, after Joey next Thursday, maybe?” Reiss is saying. She claps her hands, a sharp and precise sound, then says louder, “And why don’t we call it there for today? I’m sure you guys will all appreciate the extra time to work on your own presentations, huh?” She nods, verdict given. She’s silent for a time, as the others start to slowly pack up their things, then she turns back to him, staring down from her vantage point standing beside his chair. “Jimmy?” she says, and more words he doesn’t catch.

“Hm?” he says. 

Her eyes soften. “You got somewhere to go?” 

He peers up at her. He realises that, under it all, she’s maybe his own age. Just with her life in order. With a confident voice and an oversized blazer, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows—all these damn Albuquerque natives acting like it’s not a thousand degrees in the shade out there right now, and him sweating through his short sleeved button up.

But, the air con running like ice above him, raising the hairs on his arms, he thinks that maybe it was never that warm in here, after all. 

He can still feel the heat rising from his skin, anyway. The heat that’s been radiating off him since Kim’s place. The trapped midday sun. 

* * *

Jimmy wonders if he should’ve written Reiss’s last question down on the top of his notepad, too: _You Got Somewhere to Go?_ More helpful words to haunt him as he sits here, chair leaning up against the wall in the gap between his bed and his closet, watching the television. 

He pops his mouth off the end of his beer bottle. Licks the froth from his top lip. 

And he shuts off his thoughts again, like a door closing. Turns the latch and chains it and stares at the screen. 

It’s commercials. It feels like it’s been commercials for half an hour now. Half an hour of Wilford Brimley talking about his damn oats. And Jimmy wonders whether they purposefully make the breaks longer and longer toward the end of each show these days. Just dragging out those last few minutes of _L.A. Law_ or whatever the hell it is. Blocking off each scene with ten-minute chunks of mindless ads. 

He glances sideways, into the other room. Then looks back to the TV.

Then looks into the other room again. 

Light from the window spills into his kitchen, hitting the fridge. It’s mostly a faded, soft light, hazing through his cheap lace blinds, but it’s sharp and bright where he didn’t pull them closed properly earlier. A clean line over the white fridge.

Beneath a hot air balloon magnet, tilted jauntily like it’s stuck in a strong wind, Kim’s damn phone number is still pinned to the door. The torn sheet of paper from the bottom of her legal pad. 

He looks away from it again. 

The phone is already in his other hand, anyway. Has been in his hand for hours, the cord looping over the bed. 

Or has been in his hand since the start of the commercial break, anyway. He looks down at the numbers on the handset for a moment, for a fraction of a moment...

Or for a long time. For the very long time that passes in this eternal cycle of commercials.

The commercials are still rolling when he looks back up at the TV. At least it’s not about oats anymore. It’s some shampoo ad, instead. A woman washes her hair in an outdoor spring. He thinks he’s seen it tonight already. Thinks he’s seen it hundreds of times. He stares at the shifting colors of the blue pool and green trees and the yellow hair— 

Without looking, Jimmy thumbs the buttons on his phone, little atonal beeps. 

He holds it to his ear as it rings. The sound from the other end of the line is muted—a bell covered in cloth. After four rings, it stops. 

But his mother’s voice comes eventually: “Hello?” 

He inhales. “Hey Mom,” he murmurs. 

“Jimmy,” Ruth says softly. “It’s good to hear from you.” He can hear her own television humming in the background. He wonders if she’s trapped in the same commercial loop as him. 

He thinks, Chuck said you weren’t doing so well. Chuck said you should be the one to tell me that. Chuck said, Chuck said…but then he just sighs. “How’re things, Mom? How’re you going?” 

“I’m good, hon,” Ruth says softly. 

Yeah.

After a while, her voice comes back, light and careful: “And what about you?” 

“Good—really good,” he says. He gives a little laugh. “Hot, though! Summer, huh?”

And his mother says, “It’s been hot here, too. Humid. Poor old Dee’s shedding like anything.” She chuckles quietly. “Doesn’t seem like such a bad idea, these days.”

Jimmy scratches at his hair. It’s still ropy and damp. He hasn’t showered. “Yeah, I think she’s on to something, that cat,” he murmurs. 

And then silence. He can hear his mother breathing. Can hear _himself_ breathing. And the hum of the crappy air conditioning in his apartment. And the hiss of the line between them. 

“Hey Mom,” he says, softly, after a time. He watches the blurred scenery of another commercial. He rubs a hand over his face, burning. “D’you remember that game we used to play?”

A pause, then she says, “Game?” 

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, in the summer holidays. Always the summer holidays. When Marco was off at camp. I’d be sweating away in the store, and you’d come out from the back, and say…man, you’d say something.” He shrugs. “I don’t know.” 

“I’d say something?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Like a quote.”

And then his mother responds, her voice glimmering. “What a _dump_.”

Jimmy laughs. “Yeah. That’s it, what is that?” 

His mother chuckles, too. “I don’t know, actually,” she says warmly, after a moment. “Elizabeth Taylor used it in _Virginia Woolf._ Some Bette Davis thing.” She gives another little laugh. “I suppose I was doing Liz doing Bette.” 

Jimmy grins. 

“What a _dump,_ ” she echoes. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, that was it. You’d come out and say that. Then Pop would roll his eyes, and you’d wave him away. But it’s too hot to work, you’d say, so we’d both race out the old Chevy, piling in the front. We’d roll all the windows down, even the back ones, cranking the handles…” He stops for a moment, remembering the smell of the interior, remembering the drone of the tires down the cement. He smiles. “And _then_ we’d play the game.”

“Ah,” his mother says. She inhales sharply. After a second, the television noise stops on her end, sudden quiet. 

So Jimmy shuts his set off, too—a high-pitched whine then nothing. 

And he tells her what he remembers. He tells her that he remembers driving through Cicero in the middle of the afternoon, the wind rushing through the car, his mother’s hands tight on the brown leather steering wheel. Over Laramie Bridge, or up and down Ogden Ave, cutting diagonally between the horizontal streets. 

He wouldn’t look outside on these drives, ever. Instead, he’d be watching the speedometer, watching it slowly creep over the limit. Huddled beside her on the bench seat, peering at the dial, at the needle hovering. 

Most drives it never happened, most drives the game would be a bust—but sometimes, every so often, boom. The flash of lights behind them. The blare of a siren. 

And his mother would calmly peel off the road. Would calmly slow to a stop.

They weren’t allowed to talk about it beforehand. That was the only rule. His mother would wait, smile ghosting on her face, until the traffic cop was almost beside her door, just inches away, and then she’d wink at Jimmy, and roll down her window and say… 

“…Jeez, Mom, what would you say?” Jimmy asks now, leaning back against the cool wall of his apartment, the receiver gripped in his hand. “I can’t even remember any of ‘em.” 

And Ruth chuckles down the line. “Oh, you know…just little things. Officer, please, we’re running late for his surprise party. We’re late for his choir recital, it started ten minutes ago. Sing for him, Jimmy, go on, don’t be shy now.” 

Jimmy snorts, covering his face. 

“Or we’d be looking for a runaway dog—or, you know what, honey, I think we were chasing a rabbit once, from your famous magic act…” 

And Jimmy remembers more now, from when he was a bit older, maybe ten or eleven, from when he would take the lead. Bigger and bigger lies each time, lies that he would spring into as the cop approached. Appendicitis, or accidental poisoning, or a broken leg. He remembers clutching his face, pressing his hand to his jaw, his mother’s lips twitching as he writhed around on the seat— “An awful toothache, Officer, just look at him!” 

She still got the speeding tickets, sometimes. Maybe too often. Maybe, Jimmy thinks, maybe so often that that’s why they had to quit the game, one day. Why his father had eventually stopped rolling his eyes and started pulling his mother to one side instead, talking in loud whispers that carried across the store. Maybe by then she was risking her license, too. 

Jimmy doesn’t ask about this now, on the phone. He just laughs, softly, as his mother recounts more and more of their excuses, more and more until…

Until she sighs. 

And they’re both quiet again. 

Eventually, there’s a gentle shifting noise, like she’s moving in her chair. Like she’s leaning forward, ready to hang up the phone. 

“So, you’re good, Mom?” he says quickly. He can almost hear his voice echoing back to him as he says it, rattling hollow inside the receiver. “You’re doing okay?”

A beat, almost unnoticeable—just the delay of a long distance phone call. “Of course I am, honey,” she says. “Never better.” And again the shifting in her chair. “And you’re keeping together, too? Looking after yourself?” 

“Yeah,” Jimmy says. 

He doesn’t think about dark numbers on his fridge. He doesn’t think about dark words broken over his chest. 

He doesn’t think of the cold hard pit he’s been swallowing since this morning. Doesn’t think of her empty, tunneling eyes as he left. Doesn’t think of the words that he had taunted her with at the end, that he had almost said out loud, finally, bitterly. 

And he doesn’t think of the other unspoken words, either. The real answer to her question. The words he couldn’t even figure out how to throw cruelly in her face. 

He shuts that door and latches it, again and again, the metal cold and brittle, his fingers weak, forcing it—fucking— _shut._

“Yeah, Mom,” he says, soft, so soft. “Yeah, never better.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! i see this as the end of the first act of slip and fall season, and, _whew_. that was a tough chapter to work on. i might need to write some fluff, next. 
> 
> if you don't follow me on tumblr, for the last couple of weeks i've been writing up commentaries on requested scenes from this series! you can read them [here.](https://jimmymcgools.tumblr.com/tagged/commentary%20ask%20meme)
> 
> thank you so much to everyone who's reading, who's dropped a kudos, who's left a comment! ♥️♥️♥️


	6. Cool Hand

Jimmy stands in the doorway of the breakroom. The coffee smells strong and bitter that day, and there’s a bright summer light coming in through the small square windows along the outer wall. 

Kim has an open textbook before her like nothing’s changed. She cradles a mug with one hand and, as he watches, she reaches up to brush a strand of hair behind her ear with the other. Her hair’s pulled back with a headband, but a couple of threads have fallen loose already, gold on her blue-green cardigan. 

She’s striped with the squares of sunlight from the window and the flat blue of the overhead fluorescent bulbs. Glowing with their overlapping light, she seems like a projection screen, and he feels as if he can see all his memories cast atop her: Kim looking sideways to him from the driver’s seat, looking over to him in lavender-colored evening light, looking up at him from white-colored sheets. 

“Hey,” he says. 

She looks up to him now. “Hey.” 

He smiles, small and careful. 

Something unfurls in his chest as she smiles back. He shrugs to her, and she shrugs in response, and the dripping of the coffee slows, like a countdown. 

Jimmy moves into the breakroom and over to the kitchenette. He frees the coffee pot from the machine and fills a cup, the one with the cartoon cactus. He pauses, and then leans over the table and tops up Kim’s mug, too.

She murmurs a thanks without looking back up. 

He snags a couple of sugar packets and then pulls out the chair beside Kim and sits. A glance to the breakroom door—nobody else is in yet. He tears open a packet and pours the sugar into his coffee, then picks up the other and shakes it by the end. The granules rattle. 

He feels as if he should play the old game, at least for a little while, so he nods at the textbook. “Still going with that?”

“Mm,” Kim says quietly. “Summer classes start next week, remember?” 

“Right,” Jimmy says. He exhales carefully through his nose, and then softer: “Break’s really over then, huh.” 

Kim’s lips fold inward, tightening. She nods. 

He shakes out the sugar packet again, then rubs at the sugar with his forefinger and thumb. The granules crunch beneath the paper. “Kim,” he says. “Can we talk about this?” 

She puts her pen on her notepad. Turns and looks at him. 

“Look—” Jimmy starts. He crunches the sugar between his fingers again, then deliberately sets the packet down and moves his hand away. “I don’t want this weekend to have been just some…throwaway thing.”

Kim’s gaze darts to the packet and then back to his eyes. 

It feels like she’s daring him to say what he wants to say next: I think we could be good together, I think we really have something here. “I mean, it wasn’t nothing for me,” he says instead. “I want to make sure you know that I—” 

“It wasn’t just a throwaway thing,” Kim says quickly. 

“Right,” Jimmy says, and he smiles. “Okay, well, good.” A short pause. “On the way back you said—”

“I said a relationship wouldn’t be fair on you.”

He nods. He fiddles with the sugar packet again. “Yeah,” he says. “Not fair.”

They’re silent for a while, though Kim doesn’t go back to her reading. She’s staring into nothing, a nothing near the side of his head. He wonders what she’s seeing there. 

After a long time, he says, “Why wouldn’t it be fair?”

Kim sighs, and meets his eyes again. She gestures to her work, to the room. “I mean, hell, Jimmy, I’m either here, or I’m studying, or I’m asleep.”

He raises his eyebrows. 

She gives a short laugh. “Okay, maybe not even that last one. I just…” She folds her lips inward, and her eyes skim off the empty air again, then she looks back to him. “I can’t give you…”

“Give me what?” he says mildly. 

She’s slowly shaking her head. “Whatever it is you want. Enough time, enough…” Her head stills, and she stares at him intensely. “You don’t want to be the thing I keep pushing aside for summer school, or third year, or the bar exam. It’s not fair.” 

He raises his eyebrows expectantly. “And _you_ decide what’s fair?”

She studies him. “Yeah,” she says, after another long silence. “Yeah, sometimes I do.”

He scratches his cheek, then lowers his hand to the table, thumb coming down on the sugar packet again. He stares at it instead of at Kim. Shifts the packet over the wooden surface, the paper hissing. Back and forth, back and forth. 

Then Kim covers his hand with hers. Her fingers fold over his knuckles, soft and warm. 

He pulls his hand away, staring up at her. 

Her eyes widen. “I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t,” he says softly. “Don’t do that.”

She nods, drawing her own hand back along the table now too, back to its place among her notes and textbooks. “You’re right,” she says. “That wasn’t fair, either.” 

He wonders what exactly Kim _does_ think is fair—if she’d be happy with an unnamed middle-ground between friendship and something more, be happy to return to the place where they can drunkenly make out but wake up the next day without any obligations, or drive off together up Route 66 the next time she needs an escape. 

He watches as she curls her hand into a loose fist, pulling it in even closer to herself. 

But he’s never understood fair and not fair, anyway. Unfair is just when you don’t see the ace up the sleeve, or know about the weight in the die. Unfair is for people who think that coins can’t have two heads, or that briefcases can’t have false bottoms, or think that, just because one ink-stained bill is real, all the rest must be real, too. 

Unfair is just when you don’t see the real rules of the game. 

He waves at the space between them. The coffees and textbooks and comfortable distance. “So how about just this?”

Kim relaxes. He sees a flash of something like fondness in her eyes, and he thinks that maybe she’d been afraid he was going to push this to the breaking point, that he was going to make her pick between everything or nothing. 

So he tests the ice: “I don’t want this to be nothing, Kim.”

Her gaze softens more. 

“We don’t need to do some _When Harry Met Sally_ men-and-women-can’t-be-friends bullshit,” he says. “We can do friends.”

She gives a strange little laugh. “Good,” she says. “Good.” A slightly shaky smile. “Well, you’re my only one in Albuquerque, you know.” 

“Am I?” he says, giving a little gasp. “No kidding! How ‘bout that?”

She chuckles, more naturally now. 

He finally tears open the packet of sugar, then tips the white granules into the black coffee. They sink, vanishing, and then he takes a long sip. He was right, earlier. It’s strong and bitter. He has another drink, and he feels a smile playing on his lips, feels it edging the corners of his mouth. He’s never understood fair and not fair. He’s always been good at seeing the real rules of the game, at rigging the odds, at finding an ace up his sleeve or a two-headed coin in his pocket. 

He’s always been good at turning nothing into a winning hand—and this isn’t nothing. 

* * *

Jimmy stands in the doorway of the breakroom. The kitchenette is empty that day, mostly dark, but there’s a bright summer light coming in through the small windows along the outer wall. Geometric squares that fall cleanly into the space. 

Kim isn’t there. 

He moves inside, turning on the fluorescent lights. They flicker a few times before settling. He opens the top of the coffee maker and dumps the old filter and grounds into the garbage. Hunts through the drawer for a fresh pack of coffee filters, then heaps in some grounds, and closes the lid and sets the machine brewing. 

His tie is tight around his neck, his shirt collar pinching the sunburn he got outside Kim’s apartment yesterday. He loosens the tie, but the scratching of the fabric makes it even worse somehow. Rough cotton on his neck. He grimaces and adjusts it again, but with every shift of the collar the skin feels angrier. 

He lowers his hands to the countertop deliberately. Tries to put it out of his mind. The drip of the coffee slows, like a countdown stopping. 

Jimmy pours a cup and turns to face the table. 

Kim’s standing in the doorway. She looks at him. 

He looks back. 

You were right, he thinks. 

And whatever part of himself is usually there to claw his way back to his feet, whatever part is always spoiling for a fight, whatever part used to make his mother ruffle his hair and murmur the word _scrappy,_ is quiet. He looks for it and finds nothing. 

He could take his coffee out into the mailroom. He doesn’t. He sits at the table, watching as Kim makes her way past him, watching as she pours her own cup. He stirs two sugars into his coffee then taps his thumbnail softly on the curving china of his mug, waiting for it to cool. 

You were right, he thinks again. Always right. 

And whatever part of himself is always looking for the shortest route between two points, whatever part is always there to offer a silver-spun story, whatever part sees a complex knot and wants to cut it, is quiet. He looks for it and finds nothing. 

Kim sits a couple of spaces down from him, her hand curling around her mug. She lowers her gaze. He realises it’s the first time he’s seen her in here without a textbook. She stares at the empty table in front of her as if she’s looking for words that aren’t there. As if she doesn’t know what to do with herself. 

You were right, then, he thinks.

It wasn’t fair. 

* * *

It’s dark out the window. Jimmy stares into the quiet park opposite Chuck’s house, at the shadows of trees and park benches. The grass looks black. Along the street, yellow streetlamps glow softly, casting patches of hazy light. 

“Jimmy?” It’s Rebecca.

“Hey,” he says, turning. 

She hovers at the edge of the living room, a glass of red wine in her hand. 

“You sure I can’t help clean up?” Jimmy says. 

Rebecca waves a hand. “No, you’re fine as you are. Chuck’s wrestling with the new dishwasher. It’s better to leave him to it.”

Jimmy nods. “The chicken was really delicious,” he says. “Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome,” she says warmly. And then more pointedly: “Again.” 

Jimmy chuckles and holds up his hands.

Rebecca straightens a cushion on one of the armchairs then sits down, exhaling. She smiles over at him. “Don’t let Chuck be a stranger while I’m in New York, okay? Invite yourself over if you have to. God knows he’ll never think to do it,” she adds fondly, shaking her head. 

There’s a loud bang from the kitchen, then a frustrated curse, and Jimmy laughs. He nods his head in the direction. “How’s he doing, anyway?”

“Well, busy, but I’m sure you know that,” she says. “This new case, what is it…” 

Jimmy thinks for a moment, trying to picture photocopied documents. “Safework and Co.?”

“That sounds right,” she says. “He’s neck deep, I think he’d sleep at the office if I let him. Right next to the fax machine, of course, just in case.”

“Right,” Jimmy says, smiling. 

“It’s funny,” Rebecca says idly, “I knew when we got married that I’d never be his great love.”

Unsure quite what to say, Jimmy just nods.

Rebecca seems to take pity on him, and she chuckles kindly. “But I’m sure he’d say the same about me and my music. Hey, we make it work.” She swirls her wine then has a sip and lowers the glass, studying him. 

And under her gaze, Jimmy looks away, facing the window again. He draws the curtain back a little with his finger. It’s still quiet out there. Still just the pitch-black grass and empty park. He presses his knuckle to the glass and it’s cold, somehow, even in the warm summer evening. 

“You’ve been a hard man to pin down, lately,” Rebecca says. Her voice is low. “How’ve you been, Jimmy?”

He turns to her again, releasing the curtain. A moment passes, and he says, “Good.”

“Hmm,” Rebecca says carefully, and her eyes sparkle. 

He wonders how to answer more honestly—whether to tell her about Kim, or about college. God knows he doesn’t want Chuck to think he needs help with something, yet again. “I’m okay, I am, really,” he says, eventually. “I mean, I had a fight with my—with a friend last week, but that’s…” He waves a hand. 

Rebecca mirrors his dismissive gesture and raises her eyebrows. “Just like that, huh?”

Just like that. The shift from something to nothing. 

He thinks of Kim, a colored shape passing him in the halls, mailcart rattling. He thinks of how he doesn’t look up at all when she comes into the breakroom at lunch, how he still has another Kim staring at him in his mind, and he can’t get that one to look away. He needs her to look at something else. 

“Nah, not just like that,” Jimmy says, finally. He chuckles bitterly. “It was…it was a long time coming, actually.”

“Ah,” Rebecca says. She gives a gentle smile. 

Chuck comes into the living room then, wiping his hands on a dish towel. “I don’t know why they have to make these machines more complicated,” he says. “The old one was fine.” 

Rebecca smiles. “I remember you complaining about water-stained silverware more than once.”

“Well,” Chuck says, and he slings the dish towel over his shoulder. “Perhaps.” He stands there for a moment, then looks over to Jimmy and gives him a small smile. 

“So, you heading to New York too, then?” Jimmy says. “See Rebecca’s big show?”

“Concert,” Chuck offers. He looks down at his wife. “And we were thinking one weekend in September. Once Safework clears up.”

“Hey, nice,” Jimmy says, nodding. He perches on a sofa, fingers laced in between his knees. “So, uh, how’s the case going, anyway?” 

“Well, Moore’s still refusing to take the deal,” Chuck says idly, scratching his shoulder, and then he glances to Jimmy. “But of course you wouldn’t have heard about that. We got them down to three-hundred thousand and he…” Chuck shakes his head. “Well, if he keeps this up, our side are going to be _very_ happy after going to court.” 

Jimmy blinks. “Right.”

“Could be looking at a couple million.”

Jimmy nods.

Chuck gives him another closed-lipped smile. “So, the case is going well, Jimmy.” 

Jimmy tightens his interlaced fingers and wishes he had more to say. Something sparks in his chest. 

“The sooner you can wrap it up, the better,” Rebecca says. “I won’t be in New York forever, remember.”

“I should hope not,” Chuck says. He holds out a hand, but it’s just to take Rebecca’s now-empty wine glass, and she passes it over to him. He thanks her, then nods across to Jimmy. “Well, Jimmy, it was good of you to come.” 

“Of course,” Jimmy says, rising to his feet. He takes a shuffling step forward, then looks between them. “Thank you again.”

“Let me—did you bring anything?” Rebecca says, standing too. She peers around the living room. 

“Nah,” Jimmy says, patting his pockets. “All set.”

“Very good,” Chuck says. “Well, get home safe, Jimmy,” he adds, with another nod, and he heads back towards the kitchen. There’s the sound of a drawer opening and closing and then Chuck’s footsteps continue, moving upstairs. 

Rebecca shakes her head, leading Jimmy toward the front door. “He’ll probably go back into the office for a few hours, I imagine,” she says warmly, glancing in the direction of Chuck. “When he gets a case like this it’s hard for him to stop.”

Jimmy nods, opening the front door. He stares out at the night-filled park. The black grass is like a hole between the streets, a dark void between the hazing orange pools of light. He takes a step outside. The air is balmy—soft. “Thanks again for dinner,” he says, turning. “It was so good.”

“No more of that,” Rebecca says, holding open the door, standing in the threshold. “Seriously.”

“All right, all right,” he says warmly. “But it was.” He leans back inside and calls out, “Night, Chuck!”

There’s a muffled response. 

Jimmy gives a soft laugh, then pauses. He pictures his brother upstairs, changing back into his work suit maybe, or gathering up documents. “He really loves it, huh?”

Rebecca raises her eyebrows questioningly. 

Jimmy smiles and says, “The law.”

“Ah,” Rebecca says, chuckling. “Yes. He’s lucky I’m not a jealous woman.”

Jimmy laughs along for a moment, but then he stills again. Tucks his hands into his pockets. “What d’you think keeps him going?” he asks. “What keeps the love alive at, you know—” he checks his watch “—almost ten o’clock at night.” And he lets his smile fall, his face growing serious.

Rebecca curls her hand around the vertical edge of the door, leaning her weight on it, seemingly giving the question real thought. “Well, if you asked Chuck,” she says, eventually, “I think he’d tell you that serving the law is the greatest duty a man can perform.”

Jimmy nods, the sharpness in his chest growing. 

“But you know your brother,” Rebecca says. “Sometimes he does just like to be right.” 

* * *

Jimmy feels it again in the office of Vera Simpson, Academic Coach—it’s like sun on glass, a flash of sharp light in his chest. The careful woman is looking down at his final transcript, and she’s just said—what has she just said? 

Jimmy leans forward in the hard-backed chair. “What?”

“It’s disappointing, I know,” Vera repeats. “But UNM is the only accredited college in the state right now, and they need a GPA of at least, well—” she looks down “—let’s just say you’re a few points off.”

Jimmy exhales. It’s stifling in the small office today. The casement window is pushed open as far as it will go, the stay on its furthest notch. There’s no breeze.

Vera taps his transcript with a finger. “It would’ve been nice to get you above a 3.0, but, well. You’d better put UNM out of your mind, at least, if you really mean to do this.” 

And there it is again, the flash of light. “Of course I really mean to do it,” Jimmy says softly, almost without affect. He wants to ask what makes her think he doesn’t. 

Vera nods. “Well then,” she says.

Something in her tone still grates at him, and he folds his fingers together, hands hanging between his knees.

He wants to say—Isn’t that step one done? Aren’t I one rung closer to the top? So why do you look less believing _now?_

And the feeling flashes in him again.

Vera shifts, her careful bob cut grazing her shoulders. “Should we come up with a plan for the LSAT, then, Mr. McGill?” 

“Of course,” Jimmy mutters. He listens as she lays out some options, as she explains the new scoring system as if he was familiar with the old one, but more of him is still just searching for that glinting feeling. That spark of defiance in his chest. 

It feels like stargazing, like looking to the side of a star so that it brightens in the corner of your eye. 

* * *

He feels it again standing in the CNM library. The librarian today is a woman with severe hair and smudged glasses, and she gives him a wan smile as she speaks. “…can renew it. I imagine you probably will.” 

“Three weeks?” Jimmy repeats.

“That’s right,” she says. “And then you’ll need to renew it, dear.” 

He glances at the book on the counter between them, then back up to the librarian. There’s that flash of indignation. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll see you then, I guess.” He pockets his library card. Picks up the textbook and the matching set of cassette tapes that comes with it, then he heads away from the stern-faced woman and sits on one of the leather-trimmed benches in the library entryway. 

He shrugs his backpack off and drops it between his knees. Unzips it and rifles through for the Walkman he bought yesterday. Cracks open the tall case of tapes, and then he wrestles to free the first one from the plastic pegs. Flips it over a few times, picking the right side, then slots it in and closes the Walkman. 

A woman’s voice cuts through before he can put his headphones on: “Hey, why are you here?”

He looks up. It’s Ellis and Sam from his public speaking class, looking like an old-fashioned comedy act, tall and short. Sam’s grinning, eyebrows high above the top of her glasses, and Ellis’s eyes are gleaming. They’re each clearly waiting for something—

And then the words sink in, and Jimmy groans. “Jesus, guys,” he says. “Thanks a lot.”

“What, can’t make fun of that yet?” Sam says, grinning. “Come on, we all went through it.” 

“And at least you didn’t run out to puke,” Ellis says. His long hair’s up in a high bun today, and the reason why becomes clear as he adds: “Man, I already feel safer around the buzzsaws than I did up there.” He pauses. “I’m taking a woodwork course.”

“We’re making birdhouses,” Sam adds, and her lips twitch. “Now _that’s_ a life skill. You’re missing out, Jimmy.” 

“Yeah, I bet,” Jimmy says, shaking his head but smiling. 

She smiles warmly, too. “So, come on, how goes the big shot lawyer stuff?”

Jimmy holds up the textbook he’s just checked out of the library. _Mastering the LSAT_ , the cover says, in sharp white text. 

“Wow,” Sam says. “Light reading, huh?”

Jimmy gestures to the open case of cassettes. “Not just reading.” 

Ellis makes a low whistling noise. 

“Yeah,” Jimmy says, chuckling. “Time to enjoy the soothing tones of—” he flips the case closed and scans the front “—Albert van der Berg. Yikes.” He’s still holding the Walkman in his other hand, and he gestures with it. “I didn’t even get any music with this.” 

“Oh, dude, no,” Ellis says. “No, no. I’ll lend you some stuff—hell, you can _have_ my dad’s Kenny Loggins, that’s a freebie to a good home, _any_ home.”

Jimmy grins, and the bright spark in his chest flickers again. “Yeah?” he says. “I mean, I can probably squeeze in some Kenny between tape thirteen and fourteen.” 

Ellis makes a disgusted noise, and the three of them chat for a while longer in the entrance to the CNM library. Afterwards, Jimmy rides the bus home with his textbook open on his lap. The familiar buildings cast moving shadows over the white pages as the bus crawls through the evening traffic. He follows along with the problems as they flash light then dark, as the bus shakes and the deep-voiced Albert van der Berg talks slowly about logical reasoning. 

* * *

When Jimmy feels the spark again, it feels like cupping his palms around a flame. 

It’s cold in the parking garage, as cold as always—but there’s Kim, leaning against the wall. She doesn’t usually come down here this early, but he’s not surprised to see her. She’s in darker colors today. A dressier jacket. He wonders if she’s been meeting with someone. 

As he watches, frozen just outside the landing doors, she ashes her cigarette and looks over to him. 

He looks back. 

“Hey,” she says, after a long time. 

“Hey,” he says, nodding to her. 

He thinks about the old safe questions—like asking about law school, or asking how long she has to wait for her bar results. Asking if she’s dressed up nice to talk to the partners. 

“Sorry,” he says, instead. “Didn’t think you’d be here.” 

Kim shrugs. “I just saw you upstairs ten minutes ago.”

Still, Jimmy thinks. He tucks his hands into his pants pockets, pressing against the cheap fabric of his slacks.

It’s silent between them for a long time, just the rasp of the burning cigarette. Just the rumble of a car in the level above them, and the whirr of an elevator in the nearby shaft, a barely audible metallic creak. 

When he finally moves to leave, Kim speaks: “This isn’t some _When Harry Met Sally_ men-and-women-can’t-be-friends bullshit, Jimmy.”

The words hit him hard even though he’s not surprised by them, hit him like a cold wind. So that’s it, he thinks, so that’s it, so that’s it—

“We can still talk. Stand in the same room, even.”

Sure. Talk and stand in the same room—best friends.

He waits there with his hands tight in his pockets. He thinks about asking if this is what she’s decided is fair, now. If _fair_ is going back to whatever counted as _just friends_ for them all those months ago. If _fair_ is whatever counts as arms-length enough for Kim Wexler. 

He thinks about saying anything. He thinks about saying nothing. 

And he realises his only words to her so far are an apology, an apology just for being in the parking garage at the same time as her—the one apology to leave his lips since he left her apartment, and he knows that it’s not enough, and he imagines taking a step closer to her and spitting—Are you sorry, Kim? I’ll say it first, if you like. His own voice, piped back to him, echoing and cold. 

He looks down at the concrete floor instead. “Sure,” he says. Friends, he thinks. He doesn’t say it, and neither does Kim. 

He can feel the hollow wind in his chest again. He tries to find the guy who’ll always claw his way out of a pit, the guy who’ll cut the tangled knot. Tries to recall the feeling of his mother ruffling his hair. He cups his palms around the flame.

In the darkened garage, it’s just Kim leaning against the wall, the glowing end of her cigarette a star. He looks away.


	7. The CNM Library

The colorful spines of the library books shine in their plastic-covered dust jackets—a crosshatch of blues and greens and reds as Jimmy moves along the aisle, scanning the white stickers on their bases. 

In his ears, Albert van der Berg talks about logical reasoning in the same dry monotony that’s been the soundtrack to his life for the past couple of weeks—or that should have been the soundtrack to his life, anyway, if he didn’t keep putting it off and putting it off and slamming the damn _Mastering the LSAT_ textbook closed every time van der Berg asked him to pause the tape and have a go answering a question himself. Even now, as Jimmy doubles back to check the spines he’s just passed, he knows he’s not really listening to the explanations in his ears, knows he’s just going through the motions. 

There’s still enough time before the exam, anyway, still enough time to learn how to navigate these skull-numbing multiple choice answers, learn how to spot paradoxes and flaws in arguments. Still enough time to go through this next book, too, the one he’s finally found on the shelf: a collection of old exams for him to work at over the next few weeks—timed, and in test conditions, as Albert van der Berg keeps suggesting. 

Jimmy slips the book off the shelf and lets it fall open in his hand, leafing through. Half of the questions are marked-up with old pencil markings the previous student didn’t bother to erase, diagrams and underlinings of key words. But he snaps the book closed and tucks it under his arm, heading back down the row. 

The lights that had flickered on as he navigated the maze of shelves earlier have already dimmed again, but as he walks back down to the main room he re-triggers the sensors, and book-lined passages illuminate before him. He weaves between a cart and a stepladder, then heads out into the narrow room along the side of the library. Flanking the outer wall: students at carrel desks, huddled shapes against the white windows. 

Jimmy reaches the checkout desk and slips his headphones off. Van der Berg’s droning voice is still audible, barely, as they hang around his neck. 

He slides the book across the counter and smiles to the librarian. It’s the same wan woman who spoke with him last time, though from her blank expression she doesn’t seem to remember. 

She plucks his library card from him then looks between it and him pinchedly. It’s a recent photograph, taken at the start of summer. The card’s good for a year. Jimmy raises his eyebrows and gives a forced grin to match his smiling mug on the square of plastic. 

She hands him his card back, then slides the exam book towards him, too. “You can’t check this out.” 

Jimmy frowns. “What?”

She pushes the book an inch further towards him, then pulls her hand back from it gingerly. 

He almost laughs. “Why not?” 

She sniffs, and pulls open a drawer down near her hip. She flicks through the line of densely-packed cards inside with swift fingers, then withdraws one. She shows it to him: it’s the card for his _Mastering the LSAT_ book. “This is overdue.” 

“What? Already?” Jimmy says, and it can’t have been three weeks—

But she just makes a tight, humming noise. 

“Okay,” he says. He thinks of the enormous textbook waiting on the kitchen table in his apartment. “I don’t have that on me, can’t I just get this for now?” He rests his hand on the exam book between them, then slowly slides it back towards her. The plastic dust jacket hisses over the wooden countertop. “And I’ll bring the other one back tomorrow?” 

She makes another small noise. She takes the exam book off the counter—but instead of opening it and withdrawing the checkout card, she leans to her right and stacks it on a cart marked ‘Shelf Returns’. 

“Okay, great,” Jimmy says. 

She smiles. “Return the outstanding book, and pay your late fee—”

“—late fee—”

“—and then you can check out whatever book you’d like, Mr. McGill,” she says. “But until then, unfortunately, I’m afraid not.”

Jimmy picks up the cardboard notecard from the countertop. _Mastering the LSAT_ , it says in close, type-written letters, and then, at the bottom of a long list, his own name. “What if I need this one for longer?” he asks, showing her the card. 

“You can renew it when you return it,” the librarian says shortly. “Unless anyone requests the book before then.”

Albert van der Berg makes a particularly loud exclamation from his headphones at that—and Jimmy can’t even pretend to guess what the man could suddenly be excited about. Maybe something about Mary and Steve and their different ideas about which car they should buy.

Though Jimmy _should_ know, really. He’s tried to listen to this tape before, even tried to follow along with the textbook. Some time over the three weeks that he’s spent telling himself he’d study properly tomorrow, as he sat in his kitchen, slowly getting buzzed on beer, then calling it a night.

“Mr. McGill?” the librarian prompts. 

He picks up his library card and clacks the plastic edge on the counter then pockets it. “Fine,” he says. He turns, heading back out of the high-ceilinged main room, snaking between the long lines of attached corral desks. The desks are punctuated with students, sitting here and there, each one swaddled in their own stacks of notes and colorfully-spined books, the wooden partitions rising like fortress walls. 

Jimmy lifts his headphones back up and fits them over his head and ears just as Albert van der Berg, previous excitement once again gone, says, “—and so of course we now _know_ it can’t be the third option, because that would be out of scope…” and Jimmy steps out through the main doors and into the shocking August sunlight of the CNM campus, squinting. 

* * *

From the other room in his apartment later that night, the sound of the television. It’s low and comforting, though Letterman's monologue is inaudible over the dry voice in his headphones talking about how to spot trap answers. Jimmy knows he’s listened to this section before, too—he can remember writing almost the same notes, can remember zoning out in almost the same place.

As he does again now, staring down at his yellow legal pad. A clean red line divides his page vertically. One third on the left, two thirds on the right. 

Beside the notepad is the _Mastering the LSAT_ textbook. If he wants to, he can follow along with the tape almost word for word, can stare at the paragraph-long questions as van der Berg dully recites them to him. Can pause the tape as instructed and try to figure out which of the five multiple choice options is the reason why Lei and Vance disagree with each other about recycling solutions.

Jimmy drums his pencil on the paper, seesawing it between his pointer and middle fingers. 

There’s an open packet of batteries on the other side of the table, sitting next to the Walkman itself. Beside them, an empty carafe and and almost empty mug of coffee, probably responsible for the headache pressing on his temples—that, or the small lettering, or the dull questions, or the hours and hours of just trying to get this all out onto the paper before tomorrow, just in case.

He doodles a few twisting spirals, then makes a guess at the answer to the question. Presses the play button on the Walkman. 

His answer was wrong. He pauses the tape again. 

He stares at the red line down the notepad. Stares at it as if it has the secrets to what answers are right and what are wrong. What notes are helpful, and what not helpful. Taps the end of his pencil beside it, leaving soft grey dots on the surface.

He stares at the line as if expecting it to do something, to rise up off the yellow paper, shifting blurrily with the haze of sleep and coffee and headaches. It doesn’t. The TV plays informercials in the background, now, coming muffled through his headphones, the sound of distant people talking. 

It’s like a damn heart monitor, Jimmy thinks suddenly, there on the notepad—flat lining. Silent.

Like the machine beside his bed in a Berwyn hospital. The monitor had flickered constantly with his pulse. It hadn’t made a sound at all. Hadn’t beeped, not like in the movies. Just a steady movement. 

His knee had ached beneath the covers, then—a kind of cold, bone-deep ache that hadn’t gone away after the surgery, that had only changed to something more muted and flat and constant, even beneath the painkillers. He can still remember the sound of the television in the room next to his, always reruns of _Happy Days,_ or something else bright and relentless. And visitors, during the day. They were bright and relentless too. 

And he remembers another heart-rate monitor. 

That one probably hadn’t beeped either, he thinks, but in his memory—in his old, flawed memory—it always has. A constant undercurrent to the small room with the white-green sheets and unshaded light bulbs and ever-present smell of unfamiliar, salty food. 

“Doing okay?” his mother asks, as Jimmy plops down into the hard-backed chair beside her. 

He peels open the snack-sized packet of Jays with a crinkle of plastic, then stares inside. Gives the chips a little shake, then looks back up and flashes her a grin. “Yeah, ‘course.” He pops a chip into his mouth and crunches. 

Ruth’s lips shift—a smile, almost. She looks away, and over to the bed. 

The beeping of the heart monitor continues steadily. 

“You’re a lot like him, you know,” she says. 

Jimmy shakes his hair back out of his eyes. He looks to the bed, too—and then tears his gaze back just as quickly, glancing out into the hall, where he can see the corner of the vending machine. “No, I’m not,” he mutters. 

His mother is silent. 

He rustles the bag of chips again. Stares inside, then picks out another one and eats it. He offers the bag to his mother. She shakes her head. 

He slowly finishes the packet, then he scrunches it up, the plastic loud and horrible in the quiet room. He shoves the wadded ball into his jacket pocket, beside a couple of cardboard slugs—round, heavy discs, about the weight of a quarter. Jimmy sniffs. “I’m _nothing_ like him.” 

“Sure thing, honey,” his mother says, throwing him a sideways look. “What do I know? I’m just some lady.” 

Jimmy shoves his hands deeper into his jacket pockets, slouching in the stiff chair. He grips his lighter, rubbing his thumb over the serrated sparkwheel without turning it. 

More time passes. His mother pours two paper cups of water from the pitcher nearby and hands him one.

Jimmy takes a sip—it’s lukewarm and tastes of lemon. He swallows, then looks to his mother again. “Anything from Chuck?” 

She nods. “He’s on a flight tomorrow.”

He makes a quiet noise at the back of his throat. “Tomorrow?” he says. “Sounds familiar.” 

“Jimmy.”

“Yeah,” Jimmy says softly. “I know.” And his stomach tightens, tightens with the thought of just how much he wishes Chuck would get here, because if Chuck would only get here, with his perfect job and his perfect grades and his perfect words, then everything else would fall into line with him. 

Like how rubbing on a paper clip with a magnet makes the paper clip magnetic, too. 

And so Jimmy sits there, waiting for something to change, waiting for a shift in the magnetic poles, and all the time just watching the line on the monitor move up and down, and that beeping, that beeping that can’t have really been there, but he hears it so clearly in his memory, on and on and on— 

Jimmy comes back to himself in his Albuquerque apartment. He’s clutching his pencil tightly, white-knuckled, and he forces his fingers to relax. 

He stares at the notepad before him, at the flat red line down the page. 

He rewinds the tape. 

* * *

The harsh blue light of the 24 hour copy shop burns into Jimmy’s retinas as he steps through the automatic doors late the next night. He’s moving a little awkwardly. His bad knee is still sore—from rushing over here, yes, and from wedging himself behind a copier to fix a jam today, but mostly from drifting off to sleep at his cramped kitchen table the evening before, from waking that morning a minute before his alarm, with his headphones twisted around his neck, silent, the soporific voice of Albert van der Berg long since finished.

Jimmy peers down the aisles of stationery in the copy shop. He’s still out of breath, but there’s a pulse of excitement under his skin, strumming rhythmically. 

He reaches out and lifts off a packaged X-Acto knife. Tilts it under the bright light, the blade gleaming, then dumps it in his basket. 

Across the room, a copier beeps. A staff member takes sheets of paper from it sluggishly. 

In the next row, Jimmy finds packets of tracing paper, and he unhooks one and adds that to his basket, too. He rubs at his eyes, feeling the buzz of the enormous fluorescents above him, squares of light that lie flush with the white ceiling. It feels almost like a dumb joke, like the universe is trying to make up for earlier in the day—

* * *

—earlier in the day when, stood over a copy machine, mindlessly feeding documents into the tray, the mailroom lights had flickered off and his copier had ground to a halt. 

Because he’s still wearing his headphones, because _Mastering the LSAT_ still pounds dully into his ears, it takes Jimmy a second longer than normal to click. He slips the headphones down to his neck and looks around the dark basement, staring over to the shapes of Henry and Kim. “Power cut?” he says, dumbly. 

Henry shrugs. “Looks like it.” 

After a moment, the emergency lights illuminate in the corners of the room—old yellow bulbs that seem like they haven’t been replaced since the place was first built. 

“Bet it’s that construction next door,” Henry says. He moves around the workstation, a shadowed, slightly-hunched shape. “I’ll go up and check what’s going on, you two sit tight.” He pats his hand on the tabletop as he leaves. 

It’s quiet when he’s gone, just the mumbling voice coming from down near Jimmy’s neck. Jimmy pauses the cassette and lifts the headphones off his head completely, setting the Walkman down on the table. He remembers the pursed expression on the librarian’s face, the doubtful eyebrow she raised when Jimmy said he’d bring it in tomorrow. He might still make it after work, if he can just _really_ listen for the rest of the day, really knock it out, but… 

In the corner of his eye, he sees Kim reach forward and touch a copy machine with her fingertips. After a moment, she says, “This is going to jam when the power comes back on.”

“Mm, mine too,” Jimmy says lightly. “Bunch of sheets halfway through.” He opens the front casing and peers at the darkness inside, then shrugs. Closes the case with a snap, then turns back to the workstation and clears the documents away, then hops up onto the table, twisting to sit with his legs dangling over the edge. He rubs at his knee, trying to loosen the tense muscle. 

Kim glances over, but she doesn’t say anything.

Neither of them do, though they stay there in the darkened mailroom. The dim emergency bulbs wash everything in soft yellow, giving off more heat than light, wasting the energy of the back-up generator with their hungry filaments. 

* * *

Jimmy shifts his weight off his bad knee as he waits for the graveyard-shift worker to amble back to the counter in the copy shop. 

The guy is thin, with deep-sunk eyes—Brad Dourif in _Cuckoo’s Nest_. He scans and bags the X-Acto knife, then a little pottle of black paint. “Miniatures?” the guy asks, as he shoves the paint into a blue plastic bag that’s almost transparently thin. 

“Huh?” Jimmy says. 

“You painting miniatures?” the guys says. 

Jimmy blinks. He looks down at the tub, then back. “I mean, it’ll stick to plastic, right?” 

The copy shop worker clears his throat, then nods. “Yeah, should do.” 

There’s a beat. “Okay,” Jimmy says, finally. He cracks open his wallet, hunting through for the right amount of cash. “Then perfect.”

* * *

Kim leans against the wall beside her frozen copier, her arms crossed. Her head is tipped forward slightly, and in earlier days Jimmy would’ve wondered if she was catching up on sleep. He swings his legs back and forth. Tucks his fingers under the edge of the table. 

He wonders why she doesn’t just leave, why she doesn’t just head upstairs with Henry, with Bruce and Clara and all the others she’s going to be joining any day now. 

Whenever that day is. He doesn’t actually know when she’ll find out her results for sure. Can’t remember the date, if he ever knew it. Every morning, he arrives in the mailroom half expecting to not find her there at all. To run into her as he makes his rounds instead, somewhere on the third floor—see her from behind, sitting in one of the cubicles. See her as he’s delivering her mail, as he’s reading her name printed on the envelopes as they arrive for sorting, as they sit in his cart, as they land on her new desk. 

He rubs his knee again, flexing his leg forward. 

“Bad today?” Kim asks, looking over to him. It’s hard to see her expression in the darkness. In facing him, she’s turned away from the light. 

“Mmm,” Jimmy says. “Think it’s getting worse every year.” He gives a small chuckle. “Must be old.”

“Yeah,” Kim murmurs. “Ancient.”

He gives another soft laugh. He moves his weight a little, shifting back so the undersides of his knees are pressed right up against the edge of the table. After another long stretch of quiet, he gestures between them. “Hey, here we are again. Standing and talking.” He smiles. “Well, not so much standing.” 

Kim nods, the dark shape of her head shifting. “And not so much talking.”

“No,” Jimmy says. “No, guess not.”

And then they return to silence. The light coming in through the square windows is grey today. Flat and harsh and not enough of it.

Jimmy taps his palm on his leg, then traces a line with his finger down the top of his thigh. He twists, facing Kim a little better. “So…” he starts, and then he clears his throat. “So I’ve officially upgraded from some-college to college-graduate.” He pauses. 

Kim is silent. 

“Next time a pollster calls, I get to be a college-educated white.”

She snorts. There’s a heavy quiet, and then her voice comes, small and sincere: “Congratulations, Jimmy.”

“Thanks,” he says softly.

He taps his hands on the edge of the table. One, two, three.

He picks up his headphones and turns them around in his hand, then sets them back down again. 

The sun from outside is flat and pale.

* * *

Jimmy cups his hand against the glass window of the storefront, peering into the darkened interior. Behind the racks of shirts and jackets, behind the old ornaments and antique furniture, he almost thinks he can see a light on in the back. He blinks and peers closer, looking for movement, but there’s nothing. 

“Can I help you?”

He turns. In the soft wash of very early morning, a woman stands on the curb beside him. She holds a travel cup in one hand and a set of keys in the other. 

“Do you work here?” Jimmy asks, pointing to the store. 

“It’s my shop,” the woman says mildly. “So, yes. Can I help you?”

“I hope so,” Jimmy says, and he steps back, gesturing for her to move in ahead. A blue plastic bag swings from his hand, heavy with tracing paper and X-Acto knives and paint. 

“First time for everything,” she mutters, unlocking the door and flicking on the store lights. 

He follows her inside as they twist through the cramped interior and make their way to the counter. She sets her purse and travel cup down then bustles around behind the register. 

Jimmy shoots her a winning smile, but he spots a rack of cassette tapes and moves over to them instead. He sorts through. They’re all collectibles, all actually decent stuff, here to make the woman a profit. 

He stifles a yawn behind his hand. He’s not actually tired anymore, he hasn’t been tired since he left for the copy shop—and definitely not since he guzzled a gas station coffee while waiting for this thrift store to open, burnt and bitter and not sweet enough. 

He picks up another tape and opens the case, peering inside, and then he closes it and slides it back into the rack. He wanders over to the counter again, where the woman is slowly drinking from her travel cup and flicking through a newspaper. 

“D’you have more tapes?” Jimmy asks. “Like, a bargain bin, maybe?” 

“Uh, sure,” the woman says. She folds her newspaper back and lowers it, then leaves for the storeroom. 

Jimmy rubs his thumb over his lips and stands there waiting, shifting on his feet again. It’s a big store, though still crowded. Rows of clothes on their hangars and kitchenware on shelves. VHS tapes in makeshift towers. It smells like these places always smell—trapped air. Jimmy breathes it in. 

The owner comes back a few minutes later with a cardboard box that’s bulging at the bottom and held together with brown masking tape, and he grins. She dumps it on the countertop. “Quarter each.”

“Quarter?” he says. 

She nods firmly. “Quarter.”

He agrees. For the next ten minutes he sorts through them, pulling out handfuls, opening the cases, studying the tapes. He discards most of them, dropping them back into the box, but some he sets aside: a careful stack of a dozen or so white cassettes. 

The woman watches him curiously, sipping her coffee, her eyebrows high. 

He grins. He hands her the cash and then pauses. “And, uh, d’you have any big old books?”

* * *

Jimmy’s eyes have adjusted to the darkness of the mailroom now, adjusted enough that he can tell the rare moment when a cloud passes in front of the sun from the way the grey light shifts behind the high windows. He still sits on the workbench, his legs crossed beneath him now. 

It’s probably only been about twenty minutes, but it feels like longer, the silence between him and Kim stretching out unnaturally. 

In a movie, he thinks, there would be a clock ticking. Counting down to high noon. 

Kim scrunches up her sandwich wrapper. She’s sitting in the alcove beside her copy machine. She stretches forward to drop her trash into the can nearby, then settles back again, leaning against the wall. She reaches up and presses her fingers into her forehead, a pose so familiar that even in the darkness Jimmy feels like he can suddenly see her as clearly as if she’s been hit by a spotlight. 

He clears his throat. “So, when do you hear about the bar exam? You haven’t yet, right?” 

She looks to him. There’s a glow of yellow in her eyes. A pinch down her brow. 

“Hey,” he says. “You’ll do great.”

Her head shifts a little. Then she murmurs, “You know, I hate when you do that.” 

He frowns. “Do what?”

“Pretend I’ve said something I haven’t,” Kim says. She waves a curving hand. “Read my mind.” 

“Your mind?” Jimmy says, and he gives a little laugh. Tilts his head. “It’s right there, Kim. On your face.”

“Jimmy, it’s like, pitch black in here.” 

“Ah, well,” he says. “Guess you got me.” 

But Kim shakes her head, chuckling. 

“But you’ll tell me when you know, right?” Jimmy says. “About the bar.” He moves again, unfolding his legs and hanging them off the edge of the table, looking down at her. “I mean, after everything.”

Kim is quiet.

“It doesn’t need to be like—” Jimmy starts. “You can just tell me at work.” 

She does speak now, two short words: “Of course.”

“I didn’t…” He sighs. “You don’t need to call me. I know I kept stepping over those lines last time.” His lips are dry suddenly, and he wets them, then adds, “That’s over.”

“Over,” Kim echoes.

“Yeah,” Jimmy says. He stares at the darkened shape of her, the soft yellow glow in her eyes as they look up. “I’m not gonna do that anymore.” I _can’t_ do that anymore. “Like we said.” 

“Okay,” Kim says. She leans forward, folding her arms around her knees. She glances away, down to the side. Her profile is soft, even softer than usual. She almost seems to fade into the wall. Then her eyes snap back to his. “Jimmy,” she says, and there’s a pause, another silence that stretches impossibly long, before she adds: “I’m really sorry.” 

He inhales sharply. 

Kim’s expression flickers at his reaction. She tilts her head, one of her braids hanging over her shoulder. Tightens her hands on her elbows. 

Jimmy gives another smile, small and closed mouth. He rubs at his knee. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, me too.” He lets out a small, shaky breath. 

He hears, more than sees, her nod.

And barely above a whisper, he says, “I’m sorry, too.” 

Nothing. 

It would be better with that clock in here, better if he knew just how much time was slowly passing, in this dark space before her response. But then— 

“Okay,” Kim finally says, slightly thicker than usual. 

“Yeah,” Jimmy murmurs. 

Kim shakes her head, braids flicking. “So,” she adds brightly, “do you think Henry and the boys are out there waiting for us to ki—waiting for us to make up?”

“Hah.”

“And they’ll come busting in now, cheering—” 

“Yeah, exactly,” Jimmy says, and he chuckles. “If only I knew that’s all it’d take to move on. I would’ve just gone upstairs and cut a wire somewhere.”

“Right, right,” Kim says. “Yeah, just cut a wire.” 

There’s a long moment of quiet, and Jimmy taps his palm on the table. Rubs at a little stubborn stain near the outside seam of his slacks, scratching his thumbnail against the fabric. There’s people moving right above them now, heavy footsteps and muffled chatter.

“So, what are you gonna do now that you’re a college-educated white?” Kim says lightly. There’s something hidden beneath her voice that Jimmy only just catches, something thin and breakable. 

He pretends he hasn’t heard it. “Oh, you know…” he begins, and then he stops. He lets out his breath slowly. A long, drawn-out exhale. 

She’s still and silent. 

“I…” he says, looking away briefly. He sighs. “I want to see if I can do it for myself first. Before I tell you.” He swallows. “Is that okay?” 

Kim gives a strange nod, almost automatic looking. 

“I _will_ tell you,” Jimmy says. He chuckles. “I mean, friends, right?” My only one in Albuquerque, he thinks. He doesn’t say that. 

“Friends,” Kim says. 

Jimmy sighs. It doesn’t feel like friends. He doesn’t know _what_ it feels like. 

But they sit there, listening to the people moving above them, waiting for the lights to come back on. 

* * *

Jimmy hunches over his kitchen table, surrounded by fumes. He dips a cloth in rubbing alcohol again. Wipes it over the white plastic shell of the cassette tape. The lettering disappears slowly, the track list of Wings’s _Greatest Hits_ gradually vanishing under the damp cloth. 

He works slowly and carefully until eventually the shell is completely clean, and then he sets it off to the side with the others. The alcohol dries fast, but he leaves them alone for a while, as he lays a thin sheet of tracing paper over the first _LSAT_ cassette, cutting an indent around the raised sections of the shell so that the paper lies flush enough for him to neatly trace some outlines. 

He removes the tracing paper and presses it firmly to the table, then picks up the X-Acto knife. He starts precisely carving along the pencil markings: _Side A._

* * *

Jimmy hunches over his kitchen table, surrounded by papers. He’s mirroring his position from last night, his red-lined notepad, the _Mastering the LSAT_ textbook. 

He presses play on his Walkman and stands, heading over to the other room and then back, stretching his knee out so that it doesn’t cramp up like before—but it just seems to be getting worse and worse, feeling stiffer every time he puts his weight on it. And he wasn’t even on his feet much, today: the power had been out in the mailroom for an hour, in the end—though maybe he’d made things worse wrangling with the jammed machines for the next while. 

He listens to van der Berg’s explanation of parallel flaws, and then sits back down at the table to stare at the practice question as the man recites it. Pauses the tape. 

The silence in his ears his thick. No television tonight. 

And Jimmy tries to channel all his focus down onto the page before him, glancing between the multi-choice practice question and the yellow legal notepad. He’s jotted some notes at the top today, key words that he wrote down more because Albert van der Berg seemed to deliver them with extra emphasis than because he understood why they were useful. 

He’s drawn the same red line down the page as last night, too, the same red line he’s seen Kim mark her notepads with hundreds of times. One third of the paper to the left of it, two thirds to the right. He taps his pencil. 

He’s never been sure what’s supposed to go on either side of that line. He never asked Kim. Never asked her what made some words worthy of one side or the other. Never asked her what the red pen meant versus what the green pen meant. Why she highlighted some things in yellow and others in pink. 

He could call her and ask her now, in the middle of the night— 

—but he’s not doing that anymore.

He makes a rough noise at the back of his throat. 

The expectant silence of the paused cassette tape grows thicker. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to get all the information out of these dozen tapes and this enormous book and into his brain, or even down onto his notepad. 

He reads the current question again. Reads the answers one by one, and then picks the third option, picks the one he thinks is the flaw. 

He presses play. 

Van der Berg runs through the possible answers, dismissing them one by one. Not the first option, not the second option, not the third option— 

And Jimmy hits eject, the tape folding up out of the Walkman. He takes it and drops it onto the notepad, and it falls onto the red line, half to the left and half to the right. His wrong answer is right above it. Right next to the dumb system he doesn’t understand, the system that clearly isn’t working for him, anyway, and he knows that every day he keeps these damn tapes he’s just going to have to pay more and more in late fees, in late fees for something he wasted his time with, that he didn’t even figure out how to use right, and—

He picks up the tape. Flips it over in his grip. Examines the back, then the front. He feels something in his chest like a balloon inflating, and almost laughs—and then he does laugh, wry and thin. He’ll need, he’ll need…and as the list grows in his mind, he grins wider, and looks over at the clock. 

It’s late, but he knows somewhere that’s open. 

* * *

It’s mid-morning, a Saturday, and even though Jimmy’s sleepless Friday night is catching up with him, he pushes through the doors into the CNM library buoyantly. 

It’s not the wan librarian from Thursday morning, it’s some kid with a round face and thick eyebrows that crawl up towards his curly hairline as he waits for Jimmy to speak. 

“I’m here to return these,” Jimmy says. He gestures with the book and tape collection.

“Just put ‘em in the slot, sir,” the kid says, pointing with his thumb.

“Right,” Jimmy says. He makes to move over to the return slot, then pauses. “I, uh, think I have a late fee to pay.”

“Oh, right,” the kid says. “Okay, sure. We can do that.”

So Jimmy hands the _Mastering the LSAT_ book over to him. The dust jacket is folded tightly around the binding, and the pages look a little older than they should, really, for a book published only a couple of years ago, but he doesn’t think anyone will notice. He slides over the plastic case of cassettes next, each one nestled snugly in its holder. 

“Tapes rewound?” the kids asks.

“Yup,” Jimmy says brightly. And then: “Didn’t even get a chance to listen to ‘em actually.”

The kid nods, barely paying attention. He takes a couple of bucks from Jimmy and turns away, and when Jimmy comes back a few minutes later with the book of practice exams, the kid barely looks up from the open comic book in front of him—just stamps the checkout card and slides it into the filing box. 

Jimmy takes the new book and heads back out the door, swinging his backpack around to the front as he steps out into the courtyard. He unzips it and nestles the book inside, then rifles through the dozen-or-so individually-cased cassettes that are gathered, loose, at the bottom. He pulls out a red one—Rush. Opens it and slides the tape into his Walkman then presses play. 

_Today I will cover how to identify the different types of questions in the logical reasoning section of the exam. Some of them are more common than others, but you’ll want to be familiar with all of them…_

And Jimmy grins.

He settles his backpack onto his shoulders again, then walks out through the enormous parking lots of the CNM campus, the sun rising in waves from the cement.

The morning feels big, and light, and van der Berg’s voice is a familiar soundtrack to it all—or almost familiar. It will be soon. He’s got time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jimmy mcgill says: fuck a library


	8. This Is How Howard Hamlin Bowls

That evening, the sky is filled with those distant, enormous clouds that don’t seem to move at all, that seem more like permanent geographical features than water vapour, huge and dimensional, rising up from the desert horizon. Before them, looser, fluffier clouds drift in a faster wind, already dissolving even as Jimmy watches them. 

“‘Scuse me,” someone grunts, brushing past him. 

Jimmy looks away from the gap between the UNM buildings, shifting to the edge of the path. The buildings here are boxy, beige things that look like stacked bricks, like the lettered blocks children use when they’re learning how to spell words. The one behind him is newer than the others, outer walls unblemished, with shining handrails that lead up to the front door. 

Inside, it had smelled of fresh paint, and the room where he’d sat his LSAT. The brand-new chairs had been stiff and unforgiving, too, and now he presses his hand into the small of his back and stretches, feeling bones crunch. 

He’s never been to this part of the UNM campus before, not even in the days of meeting up with Kim at the law school or the law library. Lush green trees line the wide walkways between the square buildings, and, as Jimmy follows the dappled path away from the examination building and toward the bus stop, he passes students sitting on curved benches or the grass, or canvassing under pop-up gazebos in brightly-colored t-shirts with matching flyers in their hands. 

Jimmy’s stomach groans. He’s starving even though it’s only five o’clock, so when he passes a burger place he buys a cheeseburger wrapped in brown paper and finds a wooden bench and sits and eats, looking out toward a pond. 

The water is still and glassy, colored orange at the edges by the dead leaves of nearby trees that have fallen in and then drifted to shore. This time last year he was…where was he? Some mailroom monotony with no end in sight. He breathes out. The leaves lap at the edges of the lake. 

By the time he’s finished eating, the fast moving clouds have completely dispersed, leaving only the great, mountainous ones, glowing golden at the edges as the sun descends toward them. 

* * *

“So, what’s this supposed to be then?” Jimmy asks, picking up one of Ellis’s woodwork creations from the card table wedged in between stacks of records and textbooks in the kid’s tiny dorm room. 

“It’s one of those, uh, decorative birds,” Ellis says distractedly, twisting the spout on a box of wine, filling a cup. “Like, a heron.”

“Oh, right,” Jimmy says, replacing it on the table beside a lopsided abacus. “Of course.”

There’s about half a dozen of the wooden pieces here in the twin room—almost more than the amount of people, though when he was asked to come he’d been told it was a party. Ellis hands him a cup of the wine and Jimmy sips it. It’s cheap and acidic, but he has a few more long slugs as he takes in the rest of the room: some kids he doesn’t recognise, and the other two from the public speaking class, who’re sitting on a bed with their knees touching. Jimmy smiles. The dude who he’s always thought looks like Marlon Brando is wearing a random cowboy hat, and willowy Yvonne is talking at him without catching her breath. 

The room is small, the walls made of exposed brick that’s been painted over with white, a glossy paint that doesn’t seem to want anything to stick to it. Ellis’s posters—one of a rollercoaster at Cedar Point, then The Smiths, then a black and white photograph of a bird on a wire—are all curling up at various corners. 

Ellis’s roommate has even longer hair than Ellis, pushed back from his forehead with a thick white sweatband. He’s sitting on the floor, cross-legged, wearing basketball shorts even though he looks like he’s never played a game of basketball in his life. Instead, he’s playing a video game on a grey and purple console, controller in his hands and a cup of beer nestled into the hollow on the side of one of his bare knees. On the TV screen, a little airplane weaves between square buildings and fires at the jets in front of it. 

Jimmy finishes his wine, and sets his cup down next to the misshapen heron carving. There’s movement at his shoulder, and he turns to see Sam standing there. He nods at her. “Hey, thanks for the invite.”

She glances around the dorm. “Well, I needed someone closer to my own age.”

“Ouch,” Jimmy says, but he grins. 

“Hey, Sunday night and here you are. Not studying hard, then?” Sam says. 

Jimmy tucks his hands into his jeans pockets. “Sat the big test yesterday, actually.” 

She makes a surprised sound, halfway through taking a drink, then lowers her cup. “For real?” 

“Yeah,” he says. He shrugs his shoulders, keeping his hands in his pockets. “Just need a good enough score to get in _somewhere_ , right?” 

Sam perches on the arm of a rundown-looking sofa, and she gives him a sincere smile. “Yeah, you’ll get there.” 

“It was…” Jimmy starts, and then he slowly shakes his head. “Honestly, I dunno what it had to do with being a lawyer, anyway. Figuring out how to like…harvest fields in the right order or whatever.”

Sam chuckles. “What?” 

“You know,” Jimmy says, and then he adds: “It was my understanding that there would be no math.” 

Sam doesn’t seem to recognise the quote, but she nods along anyway. “And?” she says. 

“And?” Jimmy repeats.

“And, you figure out the right order?”

He does a little seesaw hand gesture. “Guess we’ll see.” 

Sam nods. She’s wearing an overlarge denim jacket, and she dips her hand into an inside pocket. Rifles around and pulls out a pack of nicotine gum and unwraps a piece, popping it into her mouth. 

Ellis’s roommate mashes buttons on the controller, then the screen flashes red and the plane crashes. He throws his hands up and curses, but he just as quickly gets over it, downing the rest of his beer and then wandering over to join the group. “Hey, no offense, El,” the roommate says, “but your new friend here kinda looks like a narc.” 

Sam snorts, covering her mouth. 

“What?” Jimmy says. 

“He’s not wrong,” Sam says. 

Jimmy looks down at his green polo, then back up at the others. 

“Yeah, dude, you told us all this shit about what you got up to back in Cicero, and yet…” Ellis says, lifting a skeptical eyebrow. 

And Jimmy hears his voice crack a little: “I was cool!”

Sam and Ellis make a face and look at each other.

“What?” he says.

“I dunno if anyone could ever be cool with a name like ‘Slippin’ Jimmy’.”

Ellis nods, adding: “Besides, having to _tell_ us you’re cool…” 

Jimmy feels a smile growing on his face despite himself, but he resists it and shakes his head. 

“What’d you get arrested for anyway, some white collar thing?” 

“Yeah, money laundering?” Sam says, leaning back on the arm of the sofa, her glasses shining. 

Jimmy clears his throat. “Hey, they got Capone for tax evasion—” 

Ellis’s roommate makes a spluttering noise. “Oh my god, he just compared himself to Al Capone.”

“Sorry, dude,” Ellis says, arms folded, and he raises his eyebrows to accentuate the point. “You gotta tell us what you did now.” 

Jimmy clears his throat again, then looks around at the expectant faces. Even Joe and Yvonne have looked over. Joe tips back his cowboy hat with one finger like the star of an old Western. “Uh…” Jimmy says, and then he shrugs. “Vandalism.”

There’s a short silence before anyone speaks.

“Sure,” Sam says, finally. Her tone is dry. “Whatever, Slippin’ Jimmy.” 

“God, if you keep saying it like _that_ it doesn’t sound cool,” Jimmy murmurs. 

“That’s because it’s not cool,” Sam says mildly, and she claps Jimmy on the shoulder then moves over to the mini fridge that’s sitting on a wooden crate and plugged into the wall with a knotted extension cord. 

“Lean into it, dude,” Ellis says, and he rubs his nose. “Lean into the uncool.” He pours himself another cup of wine and plops down in front of the tiny television, picking up one of the grey controllers and piloting the little plane between the geometric buildings of the three-dimensional expanse. 

Jimmy chuckles, shaking his head. He wanders over to watch, sinking down into a beanbag, trying to understand what’s going on. Soon, he’s drunk enough of the shitty wine that it’s left a burn at the back of his throat that won’t go away, and he slouches there joking with the others or shouting at the pixellated plane on the television that’s doing a shitty job getting anywhere in one piece. 

His chest swells with a warm, buzzing feeling that reminds him for the first time in a very long time of days passed in Marco’s uncle’s basement, long winter afternoons and nights, when they would top up all the household liquor bottles with water and recite along with _Repo Man_ or _Lawrence of Arabia_ , doing the accents and voices together until they could copy their favourite parts without missing a beat. 

* * *

Jimmy slams back a glass of water and lingers at the kitchenette for a moment, closing his eyes in front of the sink. He rakes his hair back off his forehead with a cool hand, then heads out into the mailroom again. The beeping of the copiers and the bang of the enormous hole-punch under Burt’s palm seems to claw at the inside of his head, long fingered—sharp fingernails running down a chalkboard. 

Across the room, Kim and Ernie are sorting through the afternoon delivery. Ernie still needs to pause with most envelopes and think about which floor they should go to, think about who works in which cubicle; but Kim moves efficiently, fluidly. Only one envelope seems to stump her, but she adds it to a box eventually, moving on. 

Jimmy’s copier beeps, rattling in his brain like marbles. He presses the pads of his forefinger and thumb into his eyelids and then gets back to work, hitting the color copy button a little slower than usual. As he reaches in for the new copies, he feels the all-too-familiar flash of a papercut, and he lets out a sound halfway between a groan and a sigh. He presses his finger to his mouth and stares around again, at Ernie leaving with one mail cart, then Kim with another. 

And throbbing finger aside, and hangover aside, he smiles. He won’t get his results back for a couple weeks yet, but he only needs the test to be done, he only needs _one school_ to take him, any school, and surely some of them are gonna be desperate enough to want his money. 

Ever since standing in the sunny evening light of the UNM campus, he’s felt like that new path has finally opened up, and now all he has to do is step along it. 

Later, at lunch, he stands with his locker half open, his unwrapped sandwich in his hand—stale bread and peanut butter. He stares at it inside the plastic, at the sad pale bread, then tosses it into his bag again. Heads off to find something warm and maybe deep fried from the cafe outside. 

When he pushes into the dim stairwell, he freezes. 

Kim is sitting a few steps up the first flight of stairs. She’s staring down at something in her hands. A sheet of paper. Several sheets. 

“Kim?” he says softly. 

She looks up—a fraction later than normal, like his voice took a while to register. Her face is blank and, for a moment, horribly familiar in its specific blankness; but then it shifts, her brow and eyes softening as she stares at him. 

“What’s wrong?” 

And she says, flatly, “I passed.” 

“What?” Jimmy says, and now it’s _her_ words that are taking longer than usual to register, lost in the neutral tone, and he shakes his head like he’s jostling his brain. “You passed the bar exam?”

She nods. 

And he smiles a little, then steps toward her. There’s a long, stretching silence, until he says, “Isn’t that…good?” 

She nods again, the exact same stiff movement.

“Kim?” Jimmy prompts, shifting closer again. With her sitting a few steps up, their heads are at the same height. 

“Yeah,” she says finally, the word leaving almost explosively. “I’m just…” She breathes out. “Whew. Yeah, Jimmy, of course it’s good.”

“So…” he says, and he waves a hand to her sitting here hidden in the dimly lit stairwell, just a pale blue light up the switchback and the red glow of an exit sign. “Kim, what’s wrong?” 

“Nothing,” she says quickly. She swipes at her eyes. “Nothing, I just—” 

And he waits after she’s cut herself off, waits for her to say anything else, but she doesn’t. Instead, a look of intense, almost shaky, relief passes over her face.

Not joy, or excitement, just relief. He stands there, at the base of the stairs, watching her, his shadow falling between them, falling over the letter she still holds with both hands. 

He tries to read the writing upside down, but it’s hard to make out the word. “How’d you do?” he says. 

She nods again, and then, like she’s coming back to herself, she clears her throat. “Yeah, good. I did good.” She stands, bustling to her feet, folding the letter back up into thirds—but as soon as she’s done that, she unfolds it again, staring down at the text, not looking at him. Her face shatters a little. 

He makes a soft noise. “Kim?” 

“God, Jimmy, I just can’t believe…” she murmurs, and now her gaze cuts down to him. She’s taller now, standing. 

And he offers finally, softly: “Can’t believe you finally did it?” 

She’s silent. Unreactive. 

He climbs up one step then pauses. She’s still taller than him, still a couple of stairs above. He says, “ _I_ can.” 

Kim inhales sharply. She stares at him with eyes that gleam in the dim stairwell. Descends a step, looking down at him. She opens her arms and before he knows it she’s hugging him, hands on his back. His head is pressing against her chest, cheek in the soft place between her shoulder and her neck. 

He hesitates, then slowly reaches up and touches his palms to the sides of her ribcage, holding her there. She’s warm and solid and familiar. 

She tilts her head, resting it on his own, mouth against his hair. 

“Thank you,” she whispers, and he doesn’t know if she’s thanking him for the hug or his words or something else. Or all of the above. Her chin presses into his head, and he can feel her chest moving beneath his cheek, rising and falling with her breath. 

“You’re welcome,” he murmurs, finally. 

She shifts but doesn’t let go. Her results letter crunches against his back, a steady pressure. 

* * *

They end up at a bowling alley that night after work, some place on Lomas that Jimmy’s passed before but never been inside. It’s pretty busy, groups of people filling out most of the lanes down the long building, and a line of black lights in the ceiling above the bowlers makes the white of their clothes glow neon blue as they step up to bowl. It smells like all the other bowling alleys he’s ever visited: shoes and whatever spray they use to clean the shoes. 

“You just gotta—believe in yourself, y’know?” Ernie says, slurring a little, leaning toward Jimmy over the small table. He has a can of Pepsi in one hand, but it hasn’t had Pepsi in it for a long time; not since Jimmy first bought it from the vending machine earlier, bought it just to empty out and repeatedly fill with beer from the shared pitcher.

Burt has one, too. He and Ernie have been in a fight for last place all night, each getting worse and worse at knocking down pins the drunker they get. The last few rounds have just been gutter balls.

“We gotta psych him out, we gotta put him off his game,” Ernie says, as Burt steps up to bowl now, currently ahead by a couple of points. “Loser!” Ernie shouts, then he flinches. He looks down toward the other lanes and shrinks in his chair. 

“Yeah, that’ll do it,” Jimmy says, chuckling. 

Burt’s eyeing up the pins, holding the ball to his chest, the white stripes of his button-up glowing under the black light. Televisions above each lane are flicking between promotional clips and music videos, the same top forty songs over and over, and so quiet on the tinny speakers they’re almost inaudible between the clatter of pins and squeak of shoes, anyway. 

Kim and Henry are talking at the next table, and Jimmy twists in his chair to listen. “Well, I need to get sworn in…” Kim says to him. “I think Howard’s gonna do it.”

“You couldn’t have done it without him, right?” Henry says. “Real mentor.” 

Kim snorts. “I like this side of you, you know,” she says. 

Burt returns, despairing, but he’s still a few points ahead of Ernie, and he punches the other kid lightly on the shoulder. Ernie rises from the table and the two drift over to one of the nearby claw machines, just staring inside and shaking it when the mousy girl working the counter isn’t looking. 

Kim steps up to bowl next, sorting through the balls in the return then choosing one. Her white blouse peeks over the collar of her blue cardigan, a glowing neon ring under the black lights above the lanes. She faces the pins, paused with the ball aloft. Jimmy feels like he can see the calculating look in her eyes even though her back is to him. 

There’s movement next to him, and Jimmy turns to see that Henry has come around to sit beside him at this table.

“Hey,” Jimmy says. 

Henry nods over to Kim, then murmurs, “Look a little less lovesick, why don’t you?”

“What?” Jimmy says, swallowing. 

Henry just makes a face. 

“We’re not—”

“No kidding,” Henry says, waving a dismissive hand. “You kids have been crashing into each other and breaking apart since day one.”

Jimmy snorts. 

Kim bowls. The ball soars down the lane, knocking over eight pins. She turns back to them and grins, a bright flash over her face, almost supernaturally bright under the black lights. She waits at the ball return until the exact same blue one comes back. Wedges her fingers into it and carries it over to the lane. 

“Guess we’re at a broken part,” Jimmy says, and then he pauses. “Or friends.” He expects the last word to come out bitterly, and it does, but only a little. He thinks of the hug earlier in the stairwell, the memory arriving in his mind with a sudden warm pressure.

Maybe it’s just easier to feel other things today, too. It must be Henry’s words— _day one—_ that have him remembering the diligent, determined Kim he met on his first week, the one who slowly but surely folded him into HHM and Albuquerque and everything else he’s done since he got here, if he’s honest with himself. 

Here she is now, neck stiff and controlled as she eyes up the remaining pins. Here she is now, real lawyer. And, even though he’s lived his whole life with Chuck, he feels a little jolt of surprise in his stomach at the idea of having someone like Kim for a friend. The idea of having done enough to earn that friendship and that smile and that tight, stairwell hug—even after everything.

“You know,” he says softly, “I was worried that when she left the mailroom we’d be over.” 

Henry gives him another look. 

Jimmy chuckles. “Okay, I know that’s not really fair.”

But Henry shakes his head. “You think the main thing you two have in common is…the mailroom?”

Jimmy looks down to the patterned carpet: colorful pins and bowling balls among geometric triangles and zigzags, all blue and purple. He shakes his head. Plucks a nacho from a bowl in the middle of the table. The cheese is cold and congealing.

“You’re up,” Kim says, widening her eyes, and Jimmy looks up at the scoreboard. _WEX_ has edged out _JMM_ with that last spare, and he grins. 

“You know it,” Jimmy says, and he stands and hunts for a ball. He’s always been decent at bowling, and he likes the careful weight of the ball in his hands as he swings back then lets it fly. In the end, he manages a spare, too, and when he gets back, Ernie and Burt have descended on Kim, standing around her table. 

“So, hey, Kim—you gonna pretend not to know us when you see us in the halls now?” Burt says. “You gonna perfect the Hamlin…” Burt squares his chest and wipes a hand down over his face, leaving his expression blank. 

Kim chuckles up at him. “You think I could pull that off, Burt?”

“Hmm. Dunno. Maybe you’d need to be…taller,” Burt says, furrowing his brow. “Hamlin’s pretty tall.” 

Ernie’s grinning, his Pepsi in his hand. “Yeah, you’re not as tall,” he slurs.

“They’ve got you there, Kim,” Henry says, as he stands from the other table, moving down to take his turn bowling 

Kim shakes her head. “Another dream crushed.” She holds up her beer to them, then takes a long drink. 

“Don’t forget the smile,” Jimmy says, and everyone looks to him. He shrugs. “I mean the like, glassy smile, right?” He snaps it onto his face the way he’s seen Howard do a couple of times, like a light switch all-at-once flicked on.

“Oh Jesus,” Kim says, turning away from him but laughing. 

“D’you think he sleeps at night? Or do you think he just powers down?” Burt says, eyes bright and giddy. 

“He’s like a Stepford Wife,” Jimmy says, nodding along, sitting down at Kim’s table. “A lawyery Stepford Wife. Just built to lawyer.” 

“Or one of the things in _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ ,” Kim says.

Jimmy clicks his fingers and points. “Yes!”

“Hey, does he eat?” Burt says, and his face grows ashen. “Guys, I’ve never seen him eat.”

There’s a clatter of pins as Henry knocks over a couple with his second ball, and then he wanders back to them. “Your turn, Ernie,” he says, as he lowers himself into a chair. 

Ernie pushes himself to his feet, heads down to pick a bowling ball, then stops. He turns to them all. He’s in a green checkered button-up today, and his loosened tie has tropical parrots on it. The white bits of the parrots are glowing. “This,” he says, “is how Howard Hamlin bowls.” 

He walks up to the lane robotically, then rocks his arm back—and as he jerks it stiffly forward, he launches the bowl down toward the pins. They all clatter over.

Strike. 

Ernie turns back to them, his mouth open and eyes wide. 

“No…” Burt whispers, as _ERN_ finally overtakes him on the scoreboard. 

“Well, shit,” Jimmy says. “This game just got interesting.” 

* * *

Later, the four of them stand in the almost empty parking lot out the back of the bowling alley. Henry had headed home an hour or two earlier. As the rest of them finally left, Jimmy had asked the woman behind the counter inside to call him a cab. She’d obliged, casting a quick look at Ernie and Burt sloppily arguing over a broken pinball machine, but she was young and bored and didn’t seem to care enough to actually say anything. 

Out in the parking lot, there’s a chill in the air, and Jimmy tucks his hands into his windbreaker. There must be a pizza place nearby, because he can smell it, meat and smoke, and he stares off at the nearby rooftops, looking for a chimney. The lights of a plane blink by, high above. Ernie and Burt cackle with vibrant laughter.

“I’ll get ‘em home,” he says to Kim.

She nods. “Kinda your fault, right?”

He grins, thinking of how many Pepsi cans of beer the two of them had downed. “Yeah, well. They deserved to have some fun.”

“I think they did,” Kim says, watching Burt and Ernie play some strange game of chicken with each other near the curb, making to slap each other, and then flinching, and then bursting into laughter. “Do you know where either of them live?”

Jimmy lifts a shoulder. “I’ll get it out of them.”

“Juan Tabo!” Burt shouts, holding his hands up in front of him defensively.

“Burt lives on Juan Tabo,” Jimmy says mildly, pointing to the kid with his thumb. 

“All right,” Kim says, chuckling. 

“What’re you gonna do?” Jimmy asks. “Head back, hang out with Ellen, maybe gossip a bit, do each other’s hair?”

Kim snorts. “I think she’s moments away from painting a line down the middle of the apartment,” she says. “Or hanging a sheet, y’know, like, uh…”

“ _It Happened One Night_ ,” Jimmy says, smiling. 

“Yeah, exactly,” Kim says. “Then we won’t even have to see each other.” She rifles through her purse and pulls out her car keys, then looks over to the other two again and smiles. There’s a big moon out, and it hazes through a layer of clouds, making them glow blue in that one bright spot. 

“Unless you wanna go get a real drink or something?” Jimmy asks. 

She looks to him, threads of hair blowing across her face with the wind. He can almost see the gears in her head turning, just like they’re turning in his, and he can see the point when she, too, thinks that it’s probably too early to test this fragile peace. Peace, friendship, whatever. 

So Jimmy smiles, and he shrugs. “I just felt like I should ask.” 

“Thank you,” Kim says sincerely, “but you’re getting the kids home.”

“Yeah,” Jimmy says. “I’m getting the kids home.” 

“Juan Tabo!” Burt shouts again. 

“We all live on Juan Tabo,” he says again, in the same mild tone as earlier. 

Kim laughs brightly. She flips her car keys around in her hand, and they jangle, landing solidly in her palm. “Night, then,” she says, and she starts to walk off toward her car. 

“Night,” Jimmy says back. He stands there in the cool air, swaying slightly on his feet as he watches her leave. When she gets to her car, he calls, “Hey, drive safe!” He raises his eyebrows and holds them up until Kim looks back, then he lowers them slowly and smiles. 

Kim rests her hands on the roof of her car, staring at him over it. “ _I_ always do,” she says, stressing the first word. 

“I know,” Jimmy says. He grins, pressing his hands deeper into is windbreaker pockets, then he shrugs. “See you tomorrow?”

Kim tucks a loose hair behind her ear and studies him. Her lips are flat, and her voice is quiet beneath the hum of traffic, but she says, “Bet on it.”


	9. Results

“So this is you, huh?” Jimmy says, as he leans back in the desk chair. It creaks—the familiar, rusty-hinged sound that always fills the second floor of HHM, where the cubicles are ever occupied by new associates sitting and creaking and working and creaking. He taps his hands on the desk surface and swivels, then nods to a nearby door. “Good of them to save you a spot right by the bathroom.”

“Hey, do _you_ have a desk?” Kim asks, consolidating a few of her folders into one stack. 

“Well, when I do, it’s gonna be a whole lot better than this,” Jimmy says. He twists around again, taking in the bare blue cubicle walls. Touches one with a fingernail. “What fabric is this?”

“I believe it’s chiffon,” Kim says, resting against her desk now, half leaning, half sitting. She laces her fingers before her; they send sharp pleats down her skirt, a new skirt that Jimmy hasn’t seen before. Her blouse is familiar at least: a pale kind of yellow thing. Her necklace hangs just above it, glinting. 

It’s still early morning, and Jimmy can already tell that this is the only time of day Kim’s new cubicle is going to get any sunlight—and even then just a little. As she leans against her desk, only the top half of her is illuminated, the morning sun coming in sideways through the far windows, and he knows that soon it will rise higher, breaking the top of the frame. Gone again until the next day.

She shifts her hands and meets his gaze. “Are you coming to the courthouse later?”

There’s a beat. “Of course,” Jimmy says. He pauses again, studying her, and then adds, “Henry told you, right? We’re all gonna come.”

“Right,” Kim says. She folds her lips inward and nods. 

Jimmy swivels in the chair, filling the silence with the squeaks. He tilts his head, but when Kim doesn’t say anything else, he sighs. “So, you got a big speech prepared?”

Kim chuckles. “I don’t think that’s how it goes, Jimmy.”

He makes a tsking noise with his teeth. “You know for a bunch of performers, there’s not a lot of showmanship with you guys.”

“Performers?” 

“Sure,” he says. 

The elevator arrives nearby with its five-note musical motif. Kim twists her watch around on her wrist and checks the time, then reaches for her suit jacket and shrugs it on. As she buttons it, her pale yellow blouse transforms, suddenly unfamiliar. “I’d better go,” she says. She raises her eyebrows. “And _you_ should be in the mailroom already.”

Jimmy waves a hand, but he rises from the creaking chair. “Alrighty,” he says. “Well, I’ll see you later, then?” 

“Yeah, see you there,” Kim says, and she’s already distracted, already heading out of her new cubicle and down to whatever meeting or introductory tour she has waiting for her now that she’s just hours away from being sworn in—from walking into the Albuquerque courts as one thing and walking out as a lawyer. 

He lingers at the edge of her cubicle a moment longer, hand on her desk. Flips a page on the desk calendar beside her boxy computer, beside her HHM-branded mug and HHM-branded pens. There are already a couple of colorful post-it notes adorning her cubicle walls, bright squares of pink and yellow, and he smiles. Phone numbers and dates marked for future reference. 

Downstairs, the well-known hum of copy machines and fluorescent lights covers him, a familiar touch. He unzips his windbreaker in the breakroom, humming softly to himself. 

Henry stops in the threshold and raises a set of knowing eyebrows. “So, how’s she settling in?” 

Jimmy chuckles. “I don’t like this meddling new side of you, y’know,” he says, as he balls up his jacket and tosses it into his locker then shuts the door.

Henry just waits, head tilted.

“She’s good. Ask her yourself,” Jimmy says warmly, brushing past Henry and back out into the mailroom proper. 

* * *

They don’t get a chance to talk to Kim until after her swearing-in ceremony finishes. When Jimmy and the others first arrive, the court is already almost full, groups of families and friends gathered loosely at the ends of the aisles or filing into the rows of seats. 

Jimmy slides in near the front and sits, Henry on one side of him and Burt on the other. There’s the soft buzz of idle chatter and the sharp squeak of good shoes on polished floor. 

At the front, standing, waiting to take their seats, is the line of lawyers-to-be. Kim and Howard are talking softly, together with another two men, one younger and one older. As Jimmy watches, Kim smiles, a flashing thing that doesn’t reach her eyes. She nods, shifting her weight between her feet, and then her gaze finally catches his. 

Jimmy raises a hand to the side of his head in a half-hearted salute. 

And Kim shakes her head, but her smile is warmer now, still lingering as she turns back to the others. 

Behind her, at the far end of the room above the long judge’s bench, is an enormous mural. Geometric shapes and patterns that remind Jimmy of the sun, somehow; that remind him of the desert. Reds and yellows and oranges, fragmented. 

When the members of the bar committee file inside a short time later, they obscure it, solemn black shapes who speak solemnly about the importance of the law and the hard work it’s taken these fine young men and women to get here; who later read out an oath that Kim and the others repeat: to support the Constitution, to respect the courts of justice. 

Halfway through the oath, there’s a hum as the central heating turns on. Jimmy feels a wave of warm air against his ankles, coming out from a vent in the wall. He looks to the window, where outside bare-branched trees ripple in the wind, where across the street cubicle workers sit in yellow-lit squares, their tiny stages brightly illuminated for everyone to see. Jimmy watches one of the office workers wander down a hallway, passing between the squares, stopping at a water cooler—until he hears Hamlin’s voice, and turns back to see Howard standing beside Kim, both straight-backed and still. 

Jimmy listens as Howard gives a short speech vouching for Kim. The neat cut of her jacket vouches for her, too, in its own hard way, and if Jimmy hadn’t seen the soft yellow blouse earlier he would never guess it was under there, unassuming and well-worn. From behind, she just looks like the others, sharp and professional. Her hair hangs down her back in a neat ponytail, straight and gathered, nothing out of place. 

He can see her pride, though, too, and her relief, can see it in the fall of her shoulders and tilt of her head. And maybe he can only see it because he knows it’s there, just like he knows the blouse is there, all of it soft and familiar beneath the pointed shoulders of dark blue. 

* * *

Later, they stand outside, lingering on the courthouse steps. A cold wind rises and falls, brushing through the loose figures, channelled down between the buildings, and Jimmy zips up his windbreaker. 

There’s a feeling in the air around them as if they’ve just been let out of a school assembly—the other groups of family members and friends talking in loud voices, like they’re making up for the silence of the ceremony. Jimmy waits with Burt, Ernie, and Henry until they spot Kim twisting between the other suited figures, her head up. 

She joins them, smiling, and Howard follows closely behind. He stops just on the fringe of their group and nods a greeting, then looks to something past Jimmy, absent-mindedly straightening his French cuffs. 

Henry holds out a gift bag to Kim. “From all of us.”

She takes it from him, peering inside. With another smile, she pulls a white envelope from the top and opens it, sliding out the neat card they’d all signed that morning. There’s a square of colorful paper tucked inside, and she shifts it aside with her thumb. Her eyes flicker over it, then she looks up. “This is a bus ticket to El Paso.”

“Yes, it is,” Henry says simply. 

“That was Jimmy’s idea,” Ernie adds. 

Jimmy shrugs, meeting Kim’s eyes. “Exit strategy.” 

“Exit strategy,” she says, chuckling. She scans the ticket again. “For next week?”

Burt nods. “We figured that gives you a few days to realize the rest of HHM isn’t as cool as us, and then you can bail.” 

“All expenses paid!” Ernie adds brightly. 

Kim chuckles. “Thanks, guys.” She tucks the ticket back inside the envelope then returns it to the bag. Her eyebrows rise, and she pulls out a white t-shirt, then shakes it loose, examining it. 

“I told them we should’ve given that to you before the ceremony so you could, you know, wear it. Really get some use out of it,” Jimmy says, grinning. “But I was voted down.”

“Damn,” Kim says. She holds it up to her torso; it’s enormous. On the front, in black sharpie: _HHM Mailroom, Class of ‘93._ She smiles, head angled downward. 

“So you don’t forget us, right?” Burt says, and his voice is unusually soft. He nods and holds out his arms almost tentatively. She moves into the hug, and he pats her on the back then steps away. “Congrats, Kim.”

“Thanks, guys,” Kim says. She hugs Ernie next, then Henry—the older man for a little longer than the other two, then she lets him go and steps back. 

There’s a flicker of hesitation as she looks to Jimmy. He doesn’t know if it’s from him or from her, or both, but then she moves closer, and he presses his palm to her back and then tucks his face into her, looking over at the others from her shoulder. Kim’s arms move up behind him. He feels her fingers press tight into his own back, and he breathes slowly against her. 

She shifts away. She runs a hand over her face, then shakes her head. “So, uh—” She chuckles, then looks down at the bag again, tucking the shirt back inside next to the bus ticket, then she smiles around at them. “Thank you.” She swallows. “You know, I could’ve lived with flowers.” 

“We got you those, too,” Henry says. “They’re in water on your desk. Just not quite so practical.”

“And Kim’s a practical kind of gal,” Jimmy adds, and her gaze cuts to him. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his windbreaker and shrugs. 

Her eyes flash with mirth. “You really thought of everything, then.” 

“Well,” Howard says at the edge of the group, and Jimmy turns—he’d forgotten Hamlin was even there. Howard opens his mouth to say something further and then he falters, ending up with just: “Well, we’re all very proud, Kim.”

“Thank you, Howard,” she says. 

Hamlin nods. He glances around at the group again, then focuses on Jimmy. “Jimmy,” he says. “Do you have a minute?”

Jimmy looks briefly to the others, but agrees, and Howard leads him a few steps away from the group. 

Hamlin’s face pulls together solemnly and he says, “Has Chuck spoken with you?”

Jimmy blinks. “Huh?”

And Howard shifts. “Well, perhaps he figured something else out, then.” He smiles. “Just let me know, all right?” 

Let you know? Jimmy thinks. “Uh, sure,” he says, and he nods vaguely as Howard pats him on the shoulder and moves away, heading toward the parking building. 

“Guess Hamlin’s not coming drinking with us, huh?” Burt says, as Jimmy returns to the group, staring at the receding back of Howard. 

“Drinking?” Kim says. “How many celebrations are we going to have?” Her gaze is still on Hamlin, too, until she finally shifts it back to the group. 

Around them, the loud chatter rises. The still-busy traffic of the nearby city streets is an ever-present background groan. 

Henry smiles. “At least one more, I think.” 

* * *

The groan of the city follows them to a rooftop bar near the courthouse, where outdoor heaters glow orange in the dusk and take the chill off the November air. 

As they drink, Jimmy unzips his jacket, settling back into one of the mismatched armchairs that have been arranged around the many low tables up here. There’s seventies sofas beside wooden benches and hard-backed chairs, an eclectic arrangement of furniture that somehow, beneath the fairy lights twisting from a pergola overhead, makes sense. 

Jimmy listens to the low chatter of the others’ conversation. Burt and Ernie have tall glasses of Pepsi—though tonight they’re really filled with Pepsi, so the joking between the two is much more sober and subdued. Across the roof, Jimmy can see a couple of people in nice suits he recognizes from the ceremony earlier, people who’ve had the same idea and come to celebrate at the closest bar, and he notices Kim glancing over every so often as if she knows them, too. 

The warmth from the glowing heater beside him grows, seeming to rise and rise as the evening passes and the ice cubes melt in drink after drink. After a while, he slips out of his windbreaker, laying it beside him and staring through the rails of the balcony, down to where the low rooftops of the city brighten as night falls. Red security lights and yellow screen doors. 

He sips his drink, reclining in the armchair. The bourbon is thinned by the ice, sweet and orange and bitter. On a flat roof nearby, he watches a woman tend to a narrow garden, thin beds of green laid out against the side of an air-conditioning unit. She has a wide hat on, covering her face. He drains the watery dregs of his glass. 

There’s movement beside him, and he turns away from the edge to see Kim. She smiles. She’s holding her suit jacket, folded over her joined hands. 

“Here.” Jimmy gestures for it, and she hands the jacket to him. He lays it over his windbreaker then looks back up to her. 

“You okay?” she says. 

Jimmy nods. He glances behind her. The others have moved away, abandoning their Pepsis to damp ring marks on the old wooden table, and they’re standing now at the opposite edge of the roof. As he watches, Ernie points at something far away. 

Then Kim moves closer. She sits on the arm of his chair and turns to him. Her hair rises in thin drifts, lifting over her forehead then twisting back, turning in the miniature weather systems formed between the warm heater and the cool night wind. 

And Jimmy leans back. He feels soft and boneless—a warm, whiskey drunkenness that’s snuck up on him without him realizing it. 

“Hey,” Kim says, and she smiles. “Happy Birthday.”

He’s silent. He plays with a fraying patch in the fabric of the armchair—thin orange-red threads holding strong over the picked-at foam beneath. Eventually, he says, “I was hoping everyone had forgotten.” 

“Yeah, well,” Kim says, “I think the others have.”

Jimmy nods, looking over at them again. “Yeah.”

Burt and Ernie are standing on the low riser along the bottom of the railing now, their toes on the wooden block. They lean forward over the edge, bodies bending sharply at the waist. Burt makes as if he’s going to fall, and then Ernie snags the back of his shirt, and the two step back, laughing loudly enough it carries through the buzz of the bar. 

Jimmy sighs, and looks back up to Kim. “But not you,” he says finally. “You didn’t forget.”

Kim shrugs lightly. ‘Well, November 12th. The day Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated.”

He grins. “Yeah?” 

But she chuckles, shaking her head. “I don’t know. It could be.” 

“I’d believe it,” Jimmy says. He frowns up at her, studying the drift of her hair in the tiny storms, studying the way she folds in her lips under his scrutiny. “I’d buy it from you,” he murmurs. “Any day.”

She gives him a soft look, eyebrows tilting. 

He shrugs again, tipping his head back against the old fabric of the armchair. He closes his eyes. After a while, he says, “Anyway, thanks.” 

“Of course,” Kim says quietly, and then, a moment later, “Get you another drink to celebrate?”

He peels his eyes open, and she nods to the empty old fashioned in his hand. He lifts the glass, contemplating it for a moment, then sets it back on his knee, onto the damp patch that’s already there. “Better not.”

“Some other time, then,” she says lightly. 

“Yeah,” he says. He smiles, tilting his head a little closer to her before he realizes what he’s doing. He leaves it there. “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

Kim’s expression shifts to something tighter, something warier, and he gets it. He looks at the empty lowball glass in his hand, at his bony thumb pressing into the textured side, at the still-damp base resting on his slacks. 

It’s like ice. 

“Hm?” 

He glances up.

Kim is frowning at him. She raises her eyebrows expectantly. 

He must’ve said it aloud, then. So he repeats it. “It’s like ice, Kim,” he says. “Knowing you.”

* * *

“Ice?” she says, seconds later, or maybe minutes. Her eyes are dark. 

Jimmy swallows. He shifts upright a little. He can feel the warmth of his drunkenness floating just beneath his skin. “I don’t mean…” he starts, and he reaches out a hand as if to touch her knee, but then draws it back. “I don’t mean like that,” he says. “You know I don’t mean cold.”

Kim’s brows draw together even tighter. 

Jimmy sighs. “Forget it.”

“Jimmy…” 

He looks to the others, to Ernie and Burt and Henry, who could come back to the table at any point—though, as Henry glances over then looks away just as quickly, Jimmy thinks, maybe not. Maybe they’re safe for a while.

But he shouldn’t do this. He shouldn’t keep following the path that he’s suddenly halfway down without expecting it, the hole he’s suddenly in the middle of. Not on the day she’s just been sworn in, on the day she’s celebrating, on his birthday— 

But he can feel words bubbling before he’s had a chance to even think them, rising and already half out of his mouth, unfiltered. He worries he’s said them already, whatever they are, but from the look on her face he can tell he hasn’t. 

She’s still waiting, gaze somehow soft and wary at once. 

“You know I don’t mean it’s cold,” Jimmy says again, even softer. Or not just cold, because ice isn’t just cold. It isn’t just that. 

He wants to tell her that it’s because he knows ice, knows the day his dad fractured an ankle when he was a little kid, racing to get to the store. Knows that, even then, he’d been the only one to see the glossy patch as they approached it in the alley beside Laramie Bridge. Knows that he hadn’t said anything, had just watched it glint and glimmer under the streetlamps. 

He knows ice, knows that glint and glimmer, knows too well the tug of it in his gut whenever he’d seen it again, years later, on Michigan Avenue, with his hands deep in the sheepskin pockets of his coat, with his hair threaded thickly over his forehead. Knows the clatter of knees and elbows and backs against the cement, sharp pockets of sound, like dice rattling in a cup. 

And he _knows_ ice: ice that’s impossible to spot unless the winter sun hits it right, ice that’s keeping his balance, ice that’s invisible and tempting and dangerous and painful; and ice that’s deciding whether to keep walking at all.

“I just mean…” he starts again, and then he sighs. “I just mean it’s like ice.” 

* * *

The letter comes and Jimmy doesn’t open it. 

He stares at it in the mailroom that morning, his heart thudding against his jaw. Feels something bubbling beneath the surface of him. 

He tucks the envelope into his back pocket before he can read the return address too closely, before the LSAC logo can burn too brightly into his retinas. He finishes sorting the rest of the mail, one piece at a time, dropping packages and papers into plastic containers with a hollow pulsing noise, and then he heads to the breakroom. 

He opens his locker and shifts the letter to his windbreaker. He closes the door. He doesn’t open it. 

* * *

He doesn’t open it the next day either, when he leaves his jacket at home, his bare arms cold on the trip into work, or the next, when he feels it in his pocket as he sits in the passenger seat of Chuck’s car. It crunches as Jimmy’s hand brushes against it, the thin plastic window crackling. He slides his hand back out again. 

Chuck glances over briefly then looks away. He winds down his car window then presses a button on an intercom. It buzzes. They wait. 

Jimmy peers through the front windscreen, where enormous gates with intricate metal detailing block any view of the rest of the driveway. Tall trees with loose green branches frame the gates. And this place must be near the river, because he’s been in the city long enough now to know you don’t find old trees like these anywhere else. 

He wonders how much they add to the property value, wonders if they’re listed somewhere as fixtures. Two solid trees.

Chuck presses the button again, and this time there’s a flicker of static, and then the huge gates fold inward. He drives through.

Suddenly, there’s the house: just as enormous as the entryway had promised, multi-levelled and beige, with red-tiled roofs and Greek-style columns, with archways and balconies. Trimmed plants in individual terracotta pots line the front court. 

The whole place feels like somewhere an old Hollywood star would go to retire, Jimmy thinks, somewhere tucked away off Sunset Boulevard—and Norma Desmond’s inside, with her ex-husband as a butler and her old silent films playing on loop. 

“So this is him, huh?” Jimmy says, leaning forward as they slow to a stop near an entryway that juts out from the building, roofed with red tiles, too, the front door flanked by gently-curved columns. 

“This is him,” Chuck says. His top lip flickers as he seems to examine the place as well, peering up to the wrought-iron curvature of the balconies, the hanging baskets of vine-like plants. 

Howard Hamlin’s Xanadu. 

Chuck shuts off the engine and unbuckles his seatbelt. “Watch out for Buster.”

Jimmy blinks. He opens the passenger door and steps out into the chill air and looks around, studying the shadowed gaps in the archways and alcoves for a huge dog-house now, or a bowl, or a chew toy. Nothing. He follows Chuck up to the front door—

—which opens with a flourish before they even reach it, Howard himself standing in the threshold. He’s wearing a navy blue sports jacket over a much paler blue shirt, and he grins broadly, stepping back to beckon them inside. “Chuck!” he says. “And Jimmy, welcome. Delighted to finally have you.”

Jimmy takes his shoes off beside the mat. The entryway is almost the size of his whole apartment: blank white walls, almost sculpted looking, with a row of empty hooks along one side and a long flat table along the other. In a small bowl on the table is a set of keys. 

Howard gestures, taking Jimmy’s windbreaker from him and then hanging it on one of the hooks. Jimmy spares a quick glance at it, thinking of the letter tucked in the pocket, and he wonders if he should maybe hide it deeper, or move it to his pants—but he looks away instead, following the others as they move further into the house. 

It doesn’t smell of cooking at all, though Jimmy has no idea where the kitchen is anyway, and he can’t see it. They pass through one living room and into a second, even larger one. Brown leather sofas are set out around a muted rug, and a smooth fireplace emerges from the wall, with logs stacked inside, unlit. On the far side of the room, bookshelves fit perfectly into holes dug into the plaster itself.

“Drink?” Howard offers, holding up a flask of amber liquid. 

Chuck accepts a glass of the whiskey, and Jimmy declines, and the three of them sit around on the leather sofas. Jimmy perches on the edge, his socks frayingly out of place against the neat carpet. 

Howard sets his glass down on an end table then crosses his legs, lacing his fingers together over his knee. He flicks his gaze to a clock on the wall, ornate hands with no numbers, then back to them. “Perfect timing as always, Chuck. Dinner will be along soon.” 

Chuck nods. 

“Never a second too early for a social occasion this one, is he?” Howard says, leaning a little closer to Jimmy, almost conspiratorially. “Do you know how long I’ve been on at him to join us for Thanksgiving? Always has a ready excuse.”

A soft thudding noise emerges from a neighboring room. 

“Ah!” Howard says, unlacing his fingers and rising to his feet. “That’ll be Buster.”

And then a tiny white dog comes trotting around the corner, a moving ball of fluff with pointed ears and Jimmy thinks— _that’s_ Buster? The dog rushes, a pale blur, over to Howard’s sock-covered feet, where it sits for a split second, tail wagging furiously, staring up at Hamlin, before weaving over to Chuck, who shrinks back on the sofa. The dog hops up, paws on the edge of the couch.

“Yes, hello, Buster,” Chuck says, giving his own knee a pat as if that’ll make do for the dog. 

Buster yaps, then drops back down to the carpet. He sniffs along an invisible trail, winding his way up to Jimmy, stopping at Jimmy’s toes. His head snaps up then, black eyes shining and vacant. 

“Hey buddy,” Jimmy says, reaching out to scritch the top of the dog’s head. The white fur is like downy fleece, like feathers. 

Buster stares at him with empty eyes and makes a soft sound, then darts away, trotting back over to Howard.

Hamlin bends down, scratching behind the dog’s ears. “He’s a big softie,” Howard says. 

Chuck shoots Jimmy a dry look, eyes flat. 

Jimmy wipes a hand over his mouth, quickly glancing away. 

“We had him groomed yesterday,” Howard continues. “Go show Chuck your paws, Buster, go on.”

Chuck leans back as the dog trots over to him again, and this time Buster jumps all the way up onto the sofa, turning in small circles beside Chuck, before bouncing back down to the floor and sitting, tail thudding against the carpet. 

“That’s nice, Buster,” Chuck says. 

Buster yaps.

Then there’s the sound of a car in the drive outside, slowing to a stop, and Buster’s ears prick up. After a moment, the front door opens, and keys jangle as they land in a bowl, and Buster trots off again, tail wagging, vanishing through the archway into the neighboring room. A soft voice begins speaking, and then more movement. Chuck shifts, standing in preparation, and Jimmy does the same. 

“…Ronaldo was off his feet,” a woman says from the other side of the archway, and then she passes through, her arms loaded down with brown bags, Buster at her heels. “I think other couples are starting to have the same idea, we’ll have to find a new place for next year.” Her eyes skim over the room then land on Jimmy, and she stops. “Hello,” she says. “I’m Linda Hamlin.” 

She’s tall, with tidy red lipstick to match the decorative vases behind her, and styled hair that curls out from her cheeks. Her coat is buttoned almost to the top, but there’s a shine of jewelry above it, opalescent and clean to match the simple pearls in her ears. Howard takes some of the bags from her, and then with an arm free she moves forward, holding out her hand. 

Jimmy shakes it. He wonders if he should give his full name too, but he just says, “Uh, Jimmy.”

“Of course,” Linda Hamlin says, and she moves on again, following Howard into the next room. It’s a dining room, with a long table under a row of recessed lights. Buster trots over to a small dog-bed that’s adorned with his name in capital letters, and he curls up neatly, watching the proceedings. 

Howard and Linda unload the bags, revealing packages of food expensively wrapped in foil with decorative bows. There’s a bar between the dining room and the gleaming, stainless-steel kitchen, and the Hamlins set the food along it. Elegant tinfoil swans swim in a line, trailing pink ribbons. 

“He really has outdone himself this year, hasn’t he?” Linda says, stepping back and turning to the others. “Chuck.” She holds out her arms, and the two hug briefly. 

“Good to see you, Linda,” Chuck says. 

“And you,” she says. “I knew Howard would get you here one day. No more excuses.”

Chuck shakes his head. “Not this year.”

“But how is your mother?” Linda asks. 

With a quick nod, Chuck says almost exactly what he’d said to Jimmy in the HHM hallway a week ago: “We’re doing Christmas there this year. It would’ve be Rebecca’s family’s turn for Thanksgiving anyway, but with her in New York and myself so busy it just seemed easier to stay put.” He sets his whiskey down on the table then looks sideways. “Didn’t it, Jimmy?”

And Jimmy pauses. “Sure,” he says, after a beat. His mother had sounded happy when they’d spoken on the phone that morning, talking about her plans with her friends, and how nice it would be to have Christmas in the house again, all three of them—but confronted with the sterile kitchen and shining swans, it’s hard not to wish he’d had enough money for two flights home.

The food, as they unwrap it, does smell good, at least, though Jimmy barely knows what it is. There’s no turkey. Instead, one of the parcels contains a line of smaller birds that lie spread-eagled over a bed of vegetables, their skin golden and cracking. Another of the foil packages is just for Buster, some kind of pale greyish pâté that Howard spoons into a bowl and that Buster licks up with a bright pink tongue, his tail vibrating, as the rest of them serve their food and settle at the long table. Chuck sits opposite Howard, and Jimmy opposite Linda. The seat at the head remains empty. Buster eats at their feet. 

“Well, Dad sends his love,” Howard says, pouring red wine into four enormously-bulbed glasses. “It’s a shame he couldn’t be here.”

“How is George?” Chuck asks, accepting his glass. “We’ve all been missing him.”

Howard gives a nod, face firmly set. “He’s well. We’ll visit him tomorrow.”

“Saturday,” Linda says, so dryly it feels like she’s remarking on a business meeting. 

“Saturday,” Howard agrees. He hands Jimmy the last glass of wine and then sits back in his chair and holds his own up by the stem. “Cheers.”

They all murmur the salutation, then drink. Jimmy lowers his glass and peers down at the crispy-skinned bird lying on his plate among the strange vegetables and red seeds and decorate curls of whatever-the-hell.

“Spatchcock,” Howard says lightly, inclining his head. 

Jimmy blinks. He looks down at the bird, then back to Howard. 

“Spatchcock,” Howard repeats, artfully removing flesh from his own bird. 

Jimmy frowns. He examines the little legs and wings.

“It’s not a type of bird, Jimmy,” Chuck says. 

“What?” Jimmy says flatly. He blinks and looks at the thing before him. “What is it, then?”

“It’s quail,” Linda says, “with a pomegranate glaze.”

“Spatchcock is how it’s _prepared_ ,” Chuck says. 

“Oh,” Jimmy says weakly. He nods, and then lifts up his fork. Breaks the skin and shreds off some white meat. Pops it into his mouth. It’s okay. Below, Buster twists between the chair legs, stopping beside Jimmy’s shin. He stares up with empty eyes. Dead eyes. He licks his lips. 

As Chuck and Howard launch into a conversation about work, Jimmy pokes at one of the orange curls on his plate—is it a carrot?—and tries not to think about the letter still tucked in his windbreaker pocket, the letter with the LSAC logo glowing on the top corner. The letter with his LSAT results. He jabs his fork into the back of the quail again, and Buster whimpers near his feet. There’s a light pressure on his sock, and Jimmy looks down to see the dog sitting there with one paw on the top of his foot, watching him dully. 

Howard laughs at something, three short notes, like a verdict, and Jimmy looks up again. Hamlin gives a flashing smile. “So, Chuck, how’s Rebecca?”

“Hm?” Chuck says, and he glances up from his own plate. Blinks. “Oh, she’s good. She phoned last week. The shows are going well.”

“Yes?” Howard says. 

Chuck nods. “Very good reviews.” He sips his wine, then gives a short nod. “I was hoping to get out there one weekend—though it doesn’t look like I’ll get the time, now.”

“Of course,” Howard murmurs. “Perhaps next time.”

Chuck nods. “She’s in high demand these days.”

There’s a whine beneath the table again, and the pressure on Jimmy’s foot increases. He tilts his head and frowns. 

“Don’t give him anything off your plate,” Linda says. “Buster has a very picky palate.”

“Right,” Jimmy says, the word half strangled as he looks down at the black-eyed dog. Buster’s eyes are like little buttons on a teddy bear, totally flat. His mouth hangs open, pink tongue visible. Jimmy can hear him breathing. 

“So, Jimmy!” Howard says brightly. “Tell us what you’ve been up to lately, my friend.”

Jimmy looks away from Buster. He takes a long sip of wine and swallows, thinking. “Oh, well…” he says, and he sets his glass down slowly. 

Howard gives a slow, robotic blink.

And Jimmy smiles. “The other week I went bowling.” 

“Oh, what club?” Linda says, eyebrows lifting in neat curves. 

Jimmy clears his throat. “I mean—ten-pin bowling.”

“Ah,” Howard says. 

“It was a place on Lomas though, actually,” Jimmy says lightly. He navigates a bit more of the quail onto his fork and then eats it gamely. “Real nice.”

Linda nods as if she hasn’t heard any of what he’s just said. She says, “Do you golf?”

“I, uh, not usually.”

“Oh, we love it,” Linda says. She looks to Howard and offers a red-lipped smile. “We first met at the club, you know, as teenagers. Though at the time I was just there for father.”

Howard nods. “Until I wowed her with my mid game.”

Linda gives a soft laugh, and it feels just as well-trod as the line from Howard that preceded it, as if they’ve been coining the same comment at every dinner party for twenty years.

Jimmy slips another curled piece of crunchy carrot into his mouth and chews. “And then what, you started sneaking off to make out down in a bunker?” he says. “Hidden somewhere in the rough?” 

Linda gives him a blank look, then chuckles politely. “I’m sure we thought about it.”

“Well, of course,” Howard says. “We were lovebirds.”

Jimmy swallows dryly around the dehydrated food. “Yeah,” he says, finally, and he takes a sip of wine. “And look at you, still together.”

“Shared experiences are the most important thing for a marriage,” Linda says, voice sincere but somehow almost toneless, like it’s another sentence she’s said at every dinner party for twenty years. 

“Guess that’s where I went wrong,” Jimmy murmurs. A smile pulls at his lips. “Not enough golfing.”

“Well, you’ll just have to join me some time, my friend,” Howard says. “Come down to Four Hills.” 

“I, uh—” Jimmy says. “Thanks. Yeah.” 

“HHM will be sponsoring a tournament at the Canyon Club next year, actually,” Linda says mildly. 

“That’s right,” Howard says. “Linda’s on the board.” 

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about that, actually, Howard…” Linda starts, and the two begin another dull conversation about some company arrangement that sounds no different from Howard’s earlier talk with Chuck about the Safework case. 

The words wash past Jimmy, and he shifts in his chair, looking back to his plate. He doesn’t think about the letter hanging in his jacket. Doesn’t think about the other thought that’s been bubbling up every time he pictures opening it. 

Buster whines beneath the table, and Jimmy pokes at his quail. One of the tiny bones snaps under the tines of his fork. 

* * *

Later that night, Jimmy sits up in his bed back at his apartment, the letter in his hand. He can still taste the meal from earlier, the weird fruity tang of the quail and the earthiness of the vegetables. He flicks his thumbnail against the hard corner of the envelope. Sets it down next to him on the covers. 

He reaches for a beer and opens it with the edge of his bedside table, chipping another chunk off the wood, then settles back against his pillows again. At Howard’s place, after the food, he had gone upstairs looking for a bathroom. He’d found it down a long hallway, the walls on the way lined with framed photos: Howard and Linda, smiling out at the camera. Standing in front of a set of elegant stone steps leading up to a fairway, Howard’s palm on Linda’s elbow, the same pose in every shot. In every year. 

Jimmy picks up the envelope again. Runs his thumb over the biggest crease on the front, then flips it over, looking down at the seal. It’s folded upward on one edge of the lip, and he smooths it down, pressing firmly as if he can reattach the glue. 

He imagines hearing the letter read out in Linda Hamlin’s affectless voice, hearing it as a rung on a ladder, a business transaction. He flicks his thumbnail along the seal again. 

And the light dims through the narrow window above his bed, an automatic timer somewhere switching off. He takes a long drink from his bottle then wipes the foam from his lip and looks over to his fridge. The door is empty, just a takeout menu from a nearby Chinese place that he’s memorized already anyway. 

He has another drink. Opens another bottle, takes another chunk from the edge of the table, sends another splash of beer onto the carpet as the heel of his palm comes down too violently and the beer froths over. The cap rattles off into some corner of the room. 

He calls her. He was always going to call her. Ever since he got the letter, he was always going to call her. He waits, breathing, until she answers the phone. 

“Hello?”

“Hey, Kim,” he says, and he’s proud of himself for how normal his voice sounds. “Hey.”

“Oh boy,” she murmurs. There’s a shifting sound of fabric, of sheets, of mattresses, and Jimmy closes his eyes. “Jimmy?”

“Hey, Kim,” he says again. A long silence now and he wonders if she’s hung up. He lets out a shuddering, half laugh, then says, “I gotta tell you something.”

Edged with panic: “Jimmy—”

“No, no, don’t hang up,” he says quickly, sitting straighter in the bed.

“I don’t—”

“It’s not about us, well, not really—”

“Jimmy,” Kim says, voice fast. He hears her exhale. “I’m going to go. Call Chuck if you need someone, okay?”

“No, no, I can’t tell Chuck,” he says, and he feels suddenly, terrifyingly, sober.

As sober as he’d felt earlier at dinner, as sober as he’d felt when he left his jacket at home yesterday so he wouldn’t have to tell her at work, as sober as he’d felt standing there in the mailroom with the letter in his hand and his pulse hitting against his skull, knowing that if he didn’t tell her now while it was all still possible, while it was all still before him as potential and not broken— 

“Howard has a dog,” he blurts, hurriedly. 

There’s a long silence, then, “What?” 

“Shit, Kim, and it’s a little evil son of a bitch, too,” he says, tucking the phone against his ear and holding his hands up to gesture. “White ball of, I don’t know—” He makes a round shape with his hands, a sphere. 

He can hear soft laughter down the line now, warm and electric. 

He grins. “His name is Buster and he’s, I swear to you, half the size of Mom’s cat.”

“No,” Kim says in a hushed, almost reverent, tone. 

“Yes,” Jimmy says. “Chuck and I went there for Thanksgiving dinner and—Jesus, Kim, he lives in this damn Norman Ba—no, uh, Norma Desmond mansion, you know, like in _Sunset Boulevard_. Like I’m Bill Holden heading up there ‘bout to walk in on a funeral for a dead chimp—” 

“Oh, God—” Kim says warmly, voice tinkling with laughter. 

“And I met his wife, and they all just…” He trails off, then rubs his hand over his lips. “It was real weird. Like, Kim, they don’t even like each other.” 

There’s a silence from the other end of the line, and he feels as if he can sense her thinking. 

He gives a weak laugh, grasping for more to say, more to add—“And I can’t fathom them fucking, you know?”

Kim snorts. “Were you _trying_ to?”

He chuckles. “Well…” But he swallows, and it all grinds to a stop, a screech of worn gears, the tirade of desperate words dropping out from beneath him. He just laughs again, hollow. 

And it’s him and the envelope. 

He flicks his thumbnail against the loose edge of the seal. A small, sharp sound. 

After a while, Kim speaks again, softly. She says, “Why did you call me, Jimmy?”

He exhales. Presses his fingers tight into the paper. “I have…a letter here,” he says. “I haven’t opened it.” He breathes again, and she’s quiet, waiting. “I have a letter and I haven’t opened it.”

“Okay,” she says.

He runs a hand down his face, pressing fingers tight into his lips, and then all-at-once he says, “It’s from the LSAC, Kim.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath.

He hates himself, suddenly. Hates that this is how he’s doing it, that he can’t see her face, that she can’t see his. Hates that he’s been drinking, and that it’s Thanksgiving, and he just took it for granted that she’d be in her apartment alone.

But he’s always found it easier to talk to Kim over the phone, anyway. Just them and the copper wire. 

He steadies himself, pulse thudding. “It’s my LSAT results. I sat the LSAT.” He exhales again. He waits for her to ask why he did it, waits for her to ask why he didn’t tell her until now. Waits for her to ask him anything.

But instead she says, “Open it.”

“What?”

“Jimmy.” His name through the headset is soft, sincere. “Jimmy,” she repeats, “so open it.”

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.” He slips his thumb, finally, under the seal, and then tears, the paper fracturing along the worn edge. He slides the letter out from inside and unfolds it. Breathes out shakily, somewhere halfway to a laugh. 

“Jimmy?”

“I can’t remember what any of this means,” he says weakly, staring down at a grid of grades and numbers. He moves it closer to the light of his lamp.

“What’s your score?”

“Uh…” His eyes scan the page, darting around, struggling to fix to anything, until: “I think, one forty?”

There’s a beat. “What?”

He repeats it. 

“Seriously?” Kim says, and it almost sounds like she’s about to laugh. “Jimmy, are you sure?”

He nods, then says, “Uh, yeah. Think so.”

There’s a strange noise from the headset, then—“Wait, did they change the system again?”

“What?”

“Did they change the scoring? When I sat it, it only went up to forty-eight.”

Jimmy laughs, bright and sharp. “What?” He runs his thumb over his lip again, then drops his hand. 

“Yeah, forty-eight was as high as it went,” Kim says. 

He huffs, shaking his head. “So you don’t even know if this is good or bad?” 

“No clue,” Kim says. “Do you?”

“Not really,” he says. But then he swallows, and softer, and more honestly: “I mean, I don’t think it’s great.”

There’s a pause. The phone line crackles. “No?” she says, finally, and then, “Well, it’s a first step, Jimmy.” 

“Yeah,” he says quietly. 

Another silence, more humming of the phone line. “Hell, you got a higher score than me.”

He chuckles, raspy in his throat. 

And her voice is right against his ear: “So congratulations.” 

Something swells in his chest, tight near his ribcage. He sets his beer on the bedside table then tips back against the bed, falling softly onto the pillows. “I think it’s a pretty shit result, you know, Kim,” he says, lifting the letter, looking at the horizontal band that has his grade way off to the left. “I think it’s really, really bad.”

“Yeah?” she says, and her voice is warm still, somehow, careful. 

“Yeah,” he says, but then he laughs again, giddy, and she laughs with him, and he lies there with his phone pressed against his ear and his other palm behind his head, his fingers laced through his hair, laughing and taking balancing step after balancing step out onto the ice.


	10. A Night at the Owl Cafe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey everyone! thanks so much to everyone who's been reading along with the story. it's been a little bit since i've left a note, so to update you on a couple of things: i've posted two one shots set in this same world, but from kim's POV, in case you missed them! they're both missing scenes from _a controlled burn_.
> 
> secondly, like chapter 10 of that first fic, _this_ chapter 10 also has **an accompanying playlist.[here's a link if you'd like to listen along!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/30SiS8L1oXxNJGyQwmOWIX?si=DIulnwunSleSfIkYEL8dOg)** they're all real options on the jukebox in the real cafe, if anyone would ever like to recreate this for me.
> 
> anyway, i tried something a bit different with this one, so i hope you enjoy it. let me know!

Kim shuts off her car, and the engine’s low rumble is replaced with the whirr of parts cooling and settling. The heaters in the front console stop blasting, too. In the sudden silence, Jimmy tips his head back against the headrest and tilts to look at Kim. 

He scratches just above his right ear. “You sure, though?” he says. 

She closes her eyes for a brief time then glances to him. “Two weeks and I’m already counting billable hours instead of sheep,” she says. 

Jimmy shrugs. “So drop me back at mine, head into the office.”

Kim gives him a look, one of her eyebrows lifting up. 

“You could make a little fort around your cubicle,” he adds, drawing a square in the air with his finger. “Hole up in there until, I don’t know, February? March?”

“Jimmy,” she says. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he says. “I know.” Another sideways look to her, to her silhouette against the yellow-streaked window. The glass is fogged up at the edges. He opens his mouth, pauses, then says, “Thank you.”

She nods. 

He opens his door to a rush of cold air and the smell of snow and damp and fires burning somewhere. 

There’s a puddle of dirt-colored slush beside the passenger wheel, and Jimmy’s sneaker comes down right in the middle of it. “Damn!” he hisses. He lifts his foot and tilts it sideways and hopes maybe it was too shallow to really do anything, but then he feels water seeping, ice cold, through his sock.

“Ah—sorry,” Kim says, rounding the front of the car. 

Jimmy shrugs and shakes his head. He steps past the water, and the two of them wander over the forecourt toward the restaurant. The parking lot is half-filled, tire tracks crisscrossed over the surface. 

On the street opposite, cars idle at a drive-in, headlights on and exhaust pipes kicking up great grey plumes that glint in the colorful flashes of the menu boards and brake lights. Other cars are parked up beneath a hotel, one of those long two-storied things with a balcony, and Jimmy can tell which rooms are occupied by the way the snow thins along the edges of the roof there, the heaters running inside. In Albuquerque in December, the hotel is about a third full. 

At the end of the street, visible down the perfect parallel lines of this city, the Sandias rise above it all. The snow on them comes all the way to the ground, thin in places but thick in the shadowed dips and valleys of the rippled hills. 

“Jimmy?” Kim says. 

He turns to her. She’s a few feet ahead, staring back to where he’s paused, lingering. “Yeah,” he says, and he gestures down to the mountains. “Just looking.”

Kim moves back beside him and looks, too. After a moment, she says, “Easy to forget we’re five thousand feet up.”

He nods. 

She brushes a hair away from her mouth, tucking the thread behind her ear, then looks to him. 

“Yeah,” Jimmy says again. 

They carry on. Before them, the Owl Cafe glows: the sculpted roof lined with red and blue neons, marking out the head of the owl, the eyes. The strip lights are reflected in the shimmered puddles across the parking lot, twisting curves and spirals that drift and ripple as he and Kim tread through the water to the entrance.

Kim holds the door open and he steps inside. Another wave of air hits him, warm this time, and Jimmy tugs down the zipper on his coat. The diner is long and narrow, with booths along the outer walls and stools lining a center counter. Burgers hiss on grills and forks clatter on plates and from a jukebox somewhere the low and sad voice of Roy Orbison sings about crying. 

They wait by the sign in the entrance until a waitress walks up to them, pencil tucked behind her ear. “Two?” she says, smiling warmly. 

They nod, and she leads them between the tables, Jimmy’s right sneaker squelching over the linoleum. She stops at a two-person booth near the front of the place: old bench-seats and a shining metal table with salt and pepper shakers and a curving chrome jukebox controller about the size of a coffee machine. 

Jimmy settles, the leather creaking, and Kim slides in opposite. Their knees brush. The seats are reaching slightly toward each other, coming out from the wall at different angles to match the curved front of the building. His right knee is an inch closer to her than his left. 

“Cold one out, huh?” the waitress says. “Something warm to drink? Coffee?” 

“Yes, please,” Kim says, “just black.” 

Jimmy grabs a menu from between the jukebox controller and the wall, and he flips it over and studies the back. Looks up at the waitress. “I’ll go a chocolate shake.”

“Great choice,” the waitress says, smiling, and she tucks her pencil back behind her ear and moves away, revealing a large cartoon owl on the back of her blue t-shirt. 

Jimmy shrugs out of his jacket and shifts in his seat, sitting so he has one leg under the table, one leg out, his damp sneaker seeping onto the linoleum. He rests his right arm on the edge of the bench behind him and twists so he’s facing the rest of the diner. There’s a rack of souvenir shirts like the one the waitress is wearing near the counter, and hats and postcards. At the far end, he can see the jukebox, playing some jazz thing now, and he taps the edge of his thumb on the hard corner of the booth. 

It’s still light out, but it seems darker than normal with the cloud cover and the haze of cold over the windows, their corners frosted. After a few minutes, a couple arrives and they sit in the next booth down, and Jimmy moves his arm clear for them, turning back so he’s facing Kim again. She’s looking down at her menu, her eyes scanning the text. 

So Jimmy unfolds his own. Burgers and all day breakfast and pies. He flips to the next page, then back, then looks up. Behind Kim, the row of two-person booths curves around the wall and down to the end of the diner. Above the last one, an enormous clock says that it’s _Time to Eat_. 

Kim’s gaze flicks up to him. “So,” she says. 

“So,” Jimmy says, and he raises his eyebrows. “What’re you going to get? Big decision, right?” 

Kim shakes her head, smiling softly. “This is the same old New Mexico stuff, Jimmy. Why’d you want to come here?”

The doors open: more customers enter, and with them a whip of cold air that he can almost see curling through the diner like in a cartoon. He waits for the people to pass, then says, “Seemed fun.” Looks back to Kim and smiles and closes his menu again. Tucks it beside the chrome jukebox controller and studies the thing. 

It’s all curved panels and buttons like something straight out of the fifties—which it probably is. There’s a slot in the top for coins, and a sign beside it in old-fashioned printed text that says, _Quarters Only._

“D’you reckon this actually works?” he asks, poking at the buttons on the front. They indent, then slowly rise back out. 

“Maybe,” Kim says. “I think you—” she flicks a lever on the top, spinning the vertical sheets of tracks “—yeah, here’s the options.” 

Jimmy lifts his hips to reach into the front pocket of his jeans and rummages around for a couple of quarters, then he settles in the booth again. Slots a coin into the top of the wallbox. It rattles down into the machine. Something clicks. “Guess we’ll find out,” he says. He looks up at Kim. “Any requests?”

Her eyes glint. “Surprise me.” 

He makes a soft humming noise. Runs down the options: love song after love song after love song. He flicks the lever to look at the next leaf. More love songs…and then he grins. Punches in D6. There’s a ticking sound from the wallbox, and then nothing. The current music continues uninterrupted. 

Kim gestures vaguely in the direction of the jukebox. “Guess we gotta wait for Diana Ross to figure out where she’s going to, first.” 

“Guess so,” Jimmy says, and he grabs his menu again, tapping his finger on the plastic cover as he opens it up. “Diana and me both.” He looks up at Kim. “I mean, breakfast food, dinner food, dessert food….what am I feeling here, Kim?”

She gives him a look. It’s still new but familiar already, her brows tilting and eyes meeting his. 

He lowers his gaze and puts down the menu. Picks up his extra quarter then flicks it between his thumb and the side of his forefinger. Taps the edge of it on the metal. 

And Kim takes off her own jacket now, one of her new black things. Her blouse is cream with greenish flowers, leaves and petals interweaving. She lays the jacket carefully on the back of booth beside her. 

“—here we are, a coffee—and a chocolate shake—” their waitress says, arriving at the side of the booth. She sets their drinks down on the shiny metal table. 

Jimmy’s milkshake is in one of those old-fashioned rippled glasses, condensation pearling on the side. He swirls the red straw, stirring in the whipped cream, then sips. It tastes almost exactly like the old diner shakes he’d drink with Marco on the way home from school, chocolatey and malty and cold. 

The waitress pulls out her notepad. “We ready to order?” 

“Yeah, think so,” Kim says, looking to Jimmy, and he shrugs—ready as ever. She closes her menu. “I’ll get the green chile cheeseburger.”

“Perfect. And you, hon?”

“Uh…” Jimmy says, and he stares blankly at the pages, then looks up at the waitress and shrugs. “Yeah, the same.”

“Two cheeseburgers coming right up,” she says, and once again she tucks her pencil back behind her ear without writing anything. Jimmy watches her go. The wide eyes of the owl on the back of her shirt return the stare. 

He takes another long drink of his milkshake then pushes the glass forward, leaving a wet trail over the surface of the table. 

The diner doors open again, bringing in another curling drift of icy air, fingers of cold that run over his skin. Down at the grill, a cook sends up plumes of smoke and steam, hissing. 

Finally, the Diana Ross song fades out. There’s a brief silence, and then the kick of bright trumpets and horns.

Kim lets out a huffing laugh. “The _Dragnet_ theme?”

Jimmy grins. “Mm,” he says. “Pop loved this show. I guess he liked, you know, the good guys winning.” He scratches his cheek then turns from her, flicking the lever on top of the wallbox to browse through the selection again. He raps the edge of his quarter sharply on the table one more time, then drops it into the top. Punches in another choice: J8. Glances to Kim. “Pretty cool, right?”

She gives him a small smile. Tilts her head slightly. Then she reaches for the briefcase that’s been beside her the whole time, turning it upright. And she flicks the latches open with her thumbs, two at once, _click._

He exhales. 

“Jimmy,” she says softly. 

“Yeah,” he says, like he’s been saying all night—all week, even. “Yeah, I know.” Another beat, the same beat. “Thank you.” 

She opens her briefcase and pulls out a couple of the practice LSATs Jimmy sweated through weeks ago. Sets the papers down between them on the table. “So, I looked these over at lunch,” she says, and it’s a new tone from her, a different kind of precise and measured. “They’re not great, but you know that.” 

“Yeah,” he says. He pinches the red straw between his forefinger and middle finger and takes a long drink. The shake’s getting low; it rattles at the bottom of the glass, air pockets. 

“I just mean—” Kim starts, and then she shifts, her knee briefly touching his where the booths are angled closer. “Jimmy, you’re getting some of the hardest stuff right and some of the easiest stuff wrong here.” 

He blinks. 

She flicks through. “This last question, you got this right, but you missed—” back to the front “—every single one in the first section.” 

He pinches his straw with his fingers again and swallows the milkshake thickly, then says, “Lucky guess on the last one?” 

Kim shakes her head. “Stop that,” she says flatly. She turns the papers around so he can see them, and talks him through the first answer. “So I’m just saying,” she continues, “with my help, even if we just sort out this easy stuff, we should be able to get your score high enough to help balance your GPA, right?” 

_Dragnet_ fades out on the jukebox. Silence, and then the theme to _Goldfinger_ starts, Shirley Bassey and loud brass. Neither of them react. Jimmy runs his thumb over the cold exterior of his milkshake glass, wiping a trail through the condensation. “With _your_ help?” he says, finally. 

Kim gives him the look again, the new but familiar one. 

“Kim, you’re—” he swallows “—you said you're already counting sheep.” 

The look softens. “Jimmy.” Her hand ripples on the table as if she’d been about to move it to his. Instead, she picks up her coffee and takes a sip. Her mug is white with a cartoon owl on it. She lowers the cup to the metal table again. Rests her chin on her palm, looking at him. 

“Kim, I’m good,” he says. Waves a hand over his papers. “I got this.”

She raises her eyebrows. 

“Okay,” he says, after a silence. He shifts in the booth, and his still-damp-but-slowly-drying sneaker squelches again. “But, you know, I can ask Chuck, instead…”

The eyebrows inch higher. 

He chuckles. “Fine, maybe not, but, Kim, you—” He pauses. Kisses his teeth. Looks over to the opposite windows. Night is falling now, and the neon lights that hang above the center bar are coming up reflected in the glass: mirrored logos for Coors Light and Budweiser. “Kim,” he says softly, “if I can’t do this on my own, why do it at all?”

As he turns back, her hand moves again—but then the waitress arrives with their cheeseburgers, sliding the plates onto the edge of the table beside Jimmy’s papers, and Kim’s hand retreats. 

The waitress smiles. “Two burgers—” 

“Ah, hang on,” Jimmy says. He clears more room, and she settles the plates properly before each of them. “Thanks.”

The waitress nods. “Anything else I can get you?” A glance at Kim’s coffee. “Top you up?”

Kim shakes her head, and the waitress thanks them and moves on again, stopping at the next booth to check in with the couple there. 

Jimmy scratches his forearm then looks back down to the table. His burger sits beside a nest of fries, chunky cut things with the skin still on. He reaches for one and then draws his hand back. Glances at Kim and raises his eyebrows. Are they gonna finish the conversation first?

“Let’s just eat,” Kim says, and then she seems to realize how the words sounded because she smiles gently. “I mean, before it gets cold, okay?” 

Jimmy nods. He picks up his burger, staring down the length of the diner. _Time to Eat_ , the clock says, still. So he takes a bite—it’s good, better than he was expecting, and he makes a muffled noise of approval. 

They eat together in silence for a while—or they eat in the warm background noise of the diner: the grills hissing, the other patrons laughing and chatting, the clattering of forks and knives and turning teaspoons in coffee cups. Someone else takes over the jukebox again, and it’s Sonny & Cher, all jangling guitars and drums, then something Jimmy doesn’t recognize. 

The sky darkens beyond the fogged windows. 

Jimmy swallows the last of his burger, then sips his milkshake. Swirls his straw around in the dregs. “So how’s life upstairs?”

Kim finishes chewing and shrugs. “Would you believe I think I was being more useful down in the mailroom?”

He widens his eyes, popping a fry into his mouth. 

She shakes her head. “Jack keeps getting the good assignments from Howard, always getting given the…well, whatever." She sighs. "I don’t know if it’s because he’s an outside hire. But I think a yellow highlighter and a piece of gaffer tape could do my job better than me right now.” 

Jimmy points to her with a thick-cut chip. “Not with the same winning attitude it couldn’t.”

Kim snorts. She pokes at her own plate then looks back up. “Anyway, he managed to wrangle a week off over Christmas, so maybe I’ll finally get something useful then.” 

“And if someone needs to sue Santa Claus, you’ll be there,” Jimmy says, swiping a chip through ketchup. 

“Exactly,” she says, “ready and waiting.”

Jimmy chuckles. He finishes his milkshake, the too-warm and too-sweet dregs rattling up the straw, then he pushes the glass to the side. 

Kim eats another chip. Dusts salt off her fingers above her plate. “How long are you back home for?” 

“Just a couple days,” Jimmy says. “Been a while since I’ve had a Christmas there.”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe…six years?”

Kim nods slowly. She wipes her fingers on a napkin then scrunches it up, dropping it on her plate.

And Jimmy shrugs. “They’re all the same, anyway. Same old conversations, same old—everything.” He exhales, and leans back in the booth, tucking his arm over the back of it again. The door to the diner swings open, sending in another whirl of cold air. 

And soon, it’s completely dark out, just the haloed lights of the streetlamps and the drive-in restaurant opposite, glowing through the glass. He thinks of snowbanks back home, piled high against windows and doorways, along sidewalks and gutters. Or climbing outside shopfronts, waiting to be shoveled. 

The reflections of the bright neons above the counter swim in the glass, and he looks to Kim.

She’s staring outside, too. Her head is resting on her palm again, her elbow beside her empty plate. 

“What’re you gonna do for the holidays?” he says softly. As she turns to him, he adds, “I mean, other than the big Santa trial thing.” 

Kim raises and lowers her shoulders, the green flowers waving. “You know, I don’t really…” she starts, and then she pauses. “I never really loved Christmas that much, anyway.”

“Yeah,” Jimmy says quietly. “I know that.” 

A waitress brushes past their booth with a tray of drinks, laying a steadying hand on the top of Kim’s seat as she twists by. Kim watches, then looks back to Jimmy. She’s wearing round gold earrings, little shining balls that glitter under the red neon sign hanging in the window right above them: the last few letters of _All Day Breakfast_. Kim lets out a thoughtful sigh, then says, “I guess I did love, like…the Jimmy Stewart idea of it.”

Yeah, Jimmy thinks. Yeah, I know that, too. It suddenly feels too personal to say out loud. 

A new song clicks onto the jukebox. It’s not a Christmas song, but it’s maybe as close as the old catalogue can get: Nat King Cole, ‘Unforgettable’, somehow sounding like bells, like snow on a slanted rooftop. A couple stands up and sways to it in the empty space before the jukebox, awkward and confident at once. 

Out the window behind the dancers, between the smudged yellow lights, Jimmy can imagine snow flurries, though it’s not snowing anymore. Hasn’t since early this morning. He thinks that by tomorrow it’ll all have melted—Albuquerque’s one day of winter already over, leaving just a few patches of white on the mountains and foothills. 

He watches the couple dance until the waitress returns with another smile and clears his and Kim’s table. 

She balances the two plates on her forearm and takes Jimmy’s empty milkshake glass. “Get you two anything else?”

Jimmy taps a finger and frowns. “What sort of pie do you have?” 

“Oh, apple, chocolate, banana cream, uh, hmm—” She nods her head to a glass case filled with enormous plastic-wrapped pies. “We’ve got a lady makes different ones every day, I’ll check the cabinet.” She gives them another warm smile then moves on, weaving through the diner with their dishes. 

Kim meets Jimmy’s gaze, raising her eyebrows. 

But he breaks the connection again, looking behind her. There’s a potted plant on the flat partition between the booths, something green with long, flat leaves. He points to it. “What kind of plant do you think that is?”

Kim turns around to study it, then twists back. 

Jimmy says, “Ficus, maybe?” 

She shakes her head, smiling. “Leaves are too long.” 

“Oh, hmm,” Jimmy says, and he pretends to study it a moment longer. 

Down by the jukebox, the couple stops dancing, leaning against each other and laughing. The woman brushes a thread of red hair behind her ear, and they move to a booth, grinning. 

The waitress returns again, pencil and notepad back in her hand. “There’s a good-looking sour cherry in there today. Think Marsha’s done well on that one.”

“Great,” Jimmy says, and he nods his agreement to the waitress. “Kim?”

She smiles and gives a light shrug. “Why not?”

The waitress nods and leaves again. 

“So,” Kim says. She wipes off the table with the side of her hand, then shifts his LSAT test papers back out into the middle. Flips through a couple a sheets again. Looks up at him. “So, Slippin’ Jimmy, huh?”

Jimmy blinks.

“Tell me about a scam,” she says, and she raises her eyebrows, linking her fingers together atop his papers like she’s trapping them there. 

“A scam?” he says. 

“Sure,” Kim says. “You know, a good one, one that always worked, that you could really sell to people.”

He blinks again. Realizes his mouth his open and closes it. 

“C’mon, you must have something good, right?” she says mildly, taking a sip of her coffee. 

He scratches his ear then lowers his hand to the table. “Okay,” he says. Looks around, at the salt and pepper shakers, at the stack of napkins. He picks up a napkin and turns it over in his palm, then wipes a spot of ketchup from the metal table. “Okay, sure,” he says, and he smiles. “Well, there’s the black money scam. Me and Marco got pretty good at the double act for that one.”

Kim nods. 

“Suitcase of cash I supposedly got off a guy who’d stained it black to get through customs without paying import tax, y’know?” He waves a hand. “Anyway, it wasn’t _real_ cash, of course, except for one bill. I’d get the mark going with the story, wave around this special fluid you need to clean off the money, give them the demo on the real bill—” 

“What as the fluid?” Kim asks.

Jimmy chuckles. “Oh, Windex.” 

“Of course,” she says, grinning. 

He nods along with her. “Even let the mark clean a real note themselves, y’know?” He taps his palm on the table. “That always got their eyes shining. And then the real cinch was getting Marco to buy into it, too. Get the two of them fighting over the briefcase, and eventually the mark would hand over whatever cash he had in his wallet and thank me for it.” Jimmy laughs softly, shaking his head, then stills. “We cleaned up good with that one a couple of times. It was just a pain making up all the dummy black notes.” 

“I bet,” Kim says. 

Jimmy shrugs, grinning effacingly. “Yeah, that was a classic. Why?”

She frowns thoughtfully, her laced fingers still trapping his practice test papers. “What made it good—what made people fall for it?” 

He makes a thoughtful noise. “I guess it’s the same as always, right?” he says eventually. “People see a hundred bucks and they get tunnel vision, start making all sorts of assumptions.” 

Kim draws her hands back now, and glances to his practice test again, eyes scanning it. Then she looks up. Folds in her lips and tilts her head. “The LSAT…you know that’s all this is, right?”

“What?”

“These logical reasoning questions,” she says, tapping the paper. “I mean, at their core. They’re just about you recognizing that leap. Like…the missing piece between a single stained note and a full briefcase.” She looks at him, eyes warm. “The flawed assumption.”

“The assumption,” Jimmy says. He looks at the papers now himself, at his circlings and crossings out and scribbled answers. “That all the notes in the briefcase are the same.” 

“That all the notes are the same,” Kim repeats softly. 

He meets her eyes again. 

She gives him the same look as she’s been giving him for the last week, all turned down brows and gentle eyes. 

“Oh,” he says, finally. He glues his eyes to the scribbled test papers, to failure after failure. To the thought of his one-forty score printed on that letter. All because he couldn’t figure out the logical gap in the questions, couldn’t figure out that he might’ve been gambling with a two-headed coin or a false-bottomed briefcase. That he might’ve just been buying a box of paper rectangles cut in the shape of hundred dollar bills. 

“Sorry for the wait, you two.” And it’s their waitress, swinging back in with the two slices of sour cherry pie. She sets their plates down and then tops up Kim’s coffee and drifts away again.

Jimmy looks down at his pie. The cherry filling is dark and seeping beneath a latticed gold crust. A scoop of vanilla ice cream rests on top, slightly off center, slowly melting. He picks up his fork then sets it down. “I’m, uh—bathroom,” he says, and he rises from the table, smiling to Kim. 

She smiles back a little uncertainly as he passes her, and his gaze skims off hers. His right shoe is still a bit damp, still squeaks over the floor, and he heads to the back of the diner, past the other booths, past the jukebox that’s playing damn John Denver, past the clock that still says it’s _Time to Eat_. 

The bathroom is small and cramped, just one stall and a urinal and a sink, and he stands in front of the mirror. A little owl is pinned to the corner. It watches with spiral eyes as Jimmy splashes his face. Pats his cheeks dry with a hand towel.

He runs the faucet again, watching the water swirl.

An old pipe in the diner somewhere is creaking, a dull whistling until he shuts the water off. Ringing in his head. 

When he gets back to the booth, Kim widens her eyes at him. “Your ice cream melted,” she says.

Jimmy looks at the cherry pie, swimming in a puddle of white. “Yeah,” he says, and he pushes the plate away. He swallows, then looks to her, to her green-flowered blouse and gold earrings and tired eyes. “Kim,” he says, and he exhales. Feels a tightness on his skin as he says, “Why are you doing this?”

She flinches, almost. A little blink and a shift backward.

“I mean—how can you want to help me with this? After everything?” And it’s finally the question that’s been nagging at him since he first saw her after their Thanksgiving phone call, since she first asked to see some practice tests, since she first suggested dinner. 

Kim is silent, studying. She folds in her lips. “The way I see it…” she starts, finally, and she looks away. Pokes at her pie then sets down her fork. “The way I see it, Jimmy, we were both really selfish for a long time.”

He frowns, shifting forward slightly, hands on the table. 

“But I guess I’ve been selfish since I came here,” she says, voice soft now, head tilted. “I guess I came here _to_ be selfish. And it all came crashing down.”

There’s a silence. The Owl Cafe’s silence, the clatter and hiss. “You never lied to me,” he offers, eventually. “You were honest—told me you didn’t have time, that it wouldn’t be fair.” He sighs. “But I kept pushing.”

She looks to him now. “That wasn’t you, Jimmy, that was _us_.” 

He swallows tightly at the acknowledgement. The door to the diner opens and closes, and he waits for the rush of ice. “Yeah,” he says. 

“I was selfish,” Kim says again, and they sound like words she’s been saying for months, coming up to the surface over and over now because they’ve been held back for so long, like they’re gasping for breath. “I was selfish, and I—I wanted you.”

And there’s the air from the open door, but it’s hot now, burning on his forearms. 

“I wanted you like I wanted the rest of it,” Kim continues, waving a hand. “Like I wanted the law degree and the nice briefcase and the big office on the fiftieth floor.”

He swallows again, his mouth dry. 

“But you’re not one of those things. Not a...not a thing at all,” she says quietly, and her eyes lock onto his. “You’re…” She sighs. “Anyway. Maybe that’s worse than lying. Maybe that’s worse, making you think this could be something steady and then pulling the floor out from under you every time.” She stares at him, blue and bright. “So I get it.” And milder now, almost throwaway: “But I’d like to help with this. If you’ll have me.” 

“Kim,” he says, humming the end of her name, shifting forward. His knee touches hers where the booths angle close to each other. 

She raises her eyebrows. Waiting. 

“Well, we can help each other again, then,” Jimmy says, and he clears his throat. Looks at his practice tests. “I can’t believe I spent a couple of months listening to some old fart instead of just hitting up the bars.” He lets out a fraying kind of laugh, then exhales through his nose. “What a waste.”

The jukebox changes. Eighties synths and kicking drums rise through the restaurant, and it sounds like driving down a road late at night, or like drunken mornings at Arno’s. 

And he looks at his wrong answers, at the sharp black letters of his writing. Presses the side of his forefinger to his lips then lowers his hand. The woman on the jukebox sings about Bette Davis and Greta Garbo and other shadowed actresses, black and white icons with piercing eyes. The drums go on. He imagines sitting in that LSAT testing room, the smell of fresh paint, the hard-backed chair digging into his back. 

He turns over the top page, looking at his own writing as if it’s a stranger’s. Taps the pad of his thumb on the paper. 

“Jimmy,” Kim says.

He looks up at her. 

Her face softens. “You really want to do this, right?”

And he scrunches up his brow. Taps his thumb again, light on the pages. Then says, “Yeah, I do.”

Kim nods like she’d been expecting the solemnity of his answer, like it all makes sense to her, somehow. He keeps waiting for her to ask him why, for her to ask what he was thinking or what he’s doing or why he hid it from her or why he’s here—but she still doesn’t. 

Instead, she stands, and he watches her. 

She holds out a hand, palm up. “Come on,” she says. “C’mere.”

He chuckles. “What?”

Kim jerks her head toward the jukebox, where the couple had been dancing earlier. “C’mon,” she says again. 

So he grips her hand, warm against his, and he stands, too. She leads him down to the machine, past the counter and the booths, past the time-stuck clock. The jukebox itself is chrome like the wallboxes, curved and shining, and the records are stacked vertically beneath the glass. He can see one spinning. The synths and drums of the song continue, driving onward. 

“Kim—” Jimmy says, as she grips his hand, drawing him closer. “What’re you—?”

She smiles, a small and almost hidden thing. Lays her palm on his chest. “Dancing,” she says, and then after a moment: “Being selfish again.”

He looks down at her, the red on her cheeks, the sparkle of her earrings. Her palm fits neatly against his own. “Yeah, okay,” he says, and he rests a hand on her waist, nestled among green flowers. They move, swaying slightly, a little off beat. 

“I’m just happy,” she says after a while, “for you.” Her voice is quiet, barely audible. She squeezes his hand. “Jimmy McGill, the lawyer.” 

He can’t think of anything to say, so he just squeezes her hand back. 

Outside, the invisible snow flurries blow again, behind the haze of yellow and red-streaked windows, the frosted edges. There and not there. 

Jimmy twists Kim around, letting go of her waist and tightening his grip on her other hand. She spins out and then back, returning closer, her chest touching his. As she laughs, effervescent and familiar, he feels the grin on his face like a weight, like a sudden irresistible force, but he presses his palm closer to hers like it’s something he needs to hang onto anyway, like it’s going to slip from him at any moment. 

Then the song ends. The synths fade out. The jukebox arm returns the record to its place. Runs down the line and is still. 

Kim lets go of his hand. 

“Thanks,” he says softly. 

She nods, breaking eye contact, looking past him. Her face draws inward thoughtfully. “You can do this, you know,” she says, after the silence. At his expression she waves an encompassing hand. “LSATs, law school, the whole deal.” 

He smiles, weak and sideways. “Slippin’ Jimmy, the lawyer.”

“Well, why not?” she says. “Scams, logical reasoning. Selling people. It’s all the same, right?” 

He studies her now. And he thinks, It’s all the same. And he thinks, The assumption was that all the notes in the briefcase were the same. He feels like he’s making the same face she’s been making at him all week. It feels like seeing something anew, unfamiliar and golden under soft light. 

They don’t return to the sour cherry pies, to the puddles of melted ice cream. They pay at the counter instead, surrounded by novelty shirts and post cards. Kim covers her half first, then she heads back to the booth. As he hands over his card, he watches her gather up his papers and stack them inside her briefcase and latch it. He looks away. 

When she gets back, he’s standing by the door, holding a thin plastic bag. 

“Did you buy something?” Kim asks, smile flickering on her face. 

He pulls out a sweatshirt: bright blue, with a Santa-hat-wearing snowy owl looming above a drawing of the diner, surrounded by snowflakes. _The Owl Cafe_ , it says in red text. _Happy Holidays_. 

Kim chuckles. “Wow.”

“Running low on winter clothes, you know?” Jimmy says mildly. He gestures with his old jacket. “Here, hold this for me.” 

She takes it from him. 

He pulls the sweatshirt out of the bag and then tugs it on over his head. It smells like new things, and the fleecy fabric inside is still soft and fuzzy. He pushes the sleeves up his forearms a little, then he holds out his hands to her, palms up. Raises his eyebrows expectantly. 

Kim stares at him. His old jacket is folded over her arms. “I don’t want to know how much that cost.” 

“But Kim,” he says, “you have to think of what it’s _worth_.”

She just shoots him a look, shaking her head and pulling back the front door. As he grins at her, she rolls her eyes, then jerks her head to the dark exit. “Come on, then, idiot, let’s go.” 

“All right, all right,” he says, and he scratches his cheek, smiling, lingering for a moment longer in the warm air and clattering silence of the diner. He can hear the click and whirr of the jukebox starting back up, the arm picking a new song. 

But spirals of cold air are blowing inside, and Kim’s holding the door open until he passes through, so the two of them cross the neon-lined threshold of the Owl Cafe together, and they walk back out into the snow. 

chapter companion artwork by the INCREDIBLE @atlanticalien on [tumblr](https://transatlanticalienart.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/tsatlanticalien) ♥🦉♥ ♥🦉♥

****


	11. Christmas, 1979

Snow falls from a yellow-tinged sky. It drifts in loose flurries before the windshield, clinging to the glass only to be swiped away, moments later, by a creak of a wiper blade. 

Chuck hums. “Well, you didn’t want to risk a taxi in this,” he answers, finally, after what’s felt like a minute of silence. He adjusts the temperature knob on the dashboard. “And Mom’s car needed the run.”

In all this? Jimmy thinks. The air from the heater blasts at his face, burning the tips of his ears and nose, his skin still icy from waiting in the pick-up bay outside O’Hare. 

Chuck’s brow is set, his eyes fixed on the road. Brake lights some thirty feet ahead of them flash, and Chuck slows—gently, gently. His lips tighten. 

“Yeah,” Jimmy says, and then again, “thank you.” 

Chuck makes another humming noise. 

The stereo in the car is off. It’s just Jimmy and Chuck and the quiet and the wheels over the snowy road—and the creak of the windscreen wipers on the old Volvo, the blades keeping slow time. Soon, they pass a train-yard, the highway curving over the tracks. Rows of rust-orange containers and empty train cars sit between the tangled lines. With their snow-capped tops they look like a model train-set in a department store window, shaken with fake powder. 

A car overtakes them in the next lane. It lights up the snowfall in two cones of static, and snow rises from the back wheels, too—swirling plumes, like steam. 

The dashboard heater blasts against Jimmy’s cheek, and he moves his head to the other side, facing his brother. He taps his knee then says, “So, how’s Rebecca been?” 

Chuck nods. “Happy to be home.” He tightens his grip on the wheel as they brake again. “Even if she had to get on another plane right away and come here.”

Through the driver’s window behind Chuck, oncoming cars rush past, headlights flickering. “Yeah,” Jimmy says. 

Approaching now, a gas station. The lights over the forecourt are vivid and blue, kicking off the snow so brightly that the surrounding area seems to glow, other-worldly. A neon-white oasis.

It all reminds Jimmy of the great snowstorms of his childhood, when the city would shut down for days, when the L tracks would freeze and roofs would cave in and Lake Michigan would come close to icing over. He remembers his father clearing snow piles away from the front door, remembers diving into wet banks with Marco, falling onto the packed snow with a bone-shaking shudder that ran down his arms to his fingertips. 

Finally, they reach familiar streets, where the close old houses are lit up for Christmas. Fairy lights hang from the gutters, neat outlines of red and green. The fronts of the houses still look like the people who used to live there twenty years ago—the old woman with her square glasses, the bald man with his eaves of red hair. 

Chuck pulls into the alley that runs between the backs of the houses, taking it slow over the snow-covered cement. The trees in the backyards here are strung with round golden lights, or twisted up in decorative baubles. They poke over the tall back fences and sheds—glimpses of shining festivity.

Their mother’s backyard is lit up, too. The old ash tree is home to a familiar tangle of silver lights, flashing off and on and flickering. 

When the car stops, Jimmy opens the passenger door and hops out, crunching over to the garage door and then pulling it up. He waits as Chuck steers the old Volvo back to its resting place, back to the dusty and dim room it’s lived in for the last few years, nestled among the half-finished children of abandoned hobbies: canvases and paints, wood carvings, an old sewing machine. 

Jimmy pulls the garage door back down. The car engine shuts off, and it’s silent and cold in the old place. 

His footsteps sound enormous as he walks to the trunk and opens it. Drags out his duffel bag as Chuck exits the driver’s side. 

Chuck’s breath comes with mist. “You go in,” he says, “say hi to Mom.” He lifts the white car cover from the top of an old washing machine. 

“Yeah?” Jimmy says. He slings his bag over his shoulder with a grunt. “You don’t need a hand?” 

Chuck glances over to Jimmy briefly then looks back down to the car. “Back door’s open.” 

So Jimmy nods. The side-door out of the garage opens reluctantly. It’s still sticky after all this time, still hanging unevenly on its frame, but he wrenches it wide enough to pass through. 

The backyard is white and empty, the path to the house marked by a set of barely visible footsteps—Chuck’s earlier, probably. Jimmy follows them, his own feet coming down above his brother’s. 

He climbs the steps to the back porch, duffel bag swinging against the railing, and pauses on the top one. His breath swells before him in glowing steam. He can feel the cold on his lips. 

He exhales and pushes open the back door. 

* * *

The back door swings inward and with it comes the smell of cloves. 

Jimmy kicks his boot soles into the coarse-haired doormat, loosing snow. He rattles his head, shaking out his hair, the thick threads whacking his temples. He takes off his coat and rattles that too, buttons and coins jangling inside and snow falling from the shoulders. He hangs it from a hook in the mudroom. Scratches the back of his head and sniffs.

The smell of cloves and weed. He leans in and sniffs his coat closer, then slides his hand into a front pocket, shoving the bag deeper, tucking the ends of the plastic inside.

“Jimmy?”

He runs a hand over his mouth, forefinger and thumb. Gives a small cough and wets his lips. “Yeah, Mom?” he says. “It’s me.” 

Silence. He shuffles through the mudroom into the kitchen, flicking on the light, brightening the pale wooden cabinets, the hanging dish towels, the line of patterned wallpaper that runs above the countertops, pears and apples along twisting orange-green vines. 

On the kitchen island: a bowl of clove-studded oranges, less than usual. They smell bright and spiced and earthy. 

Jimmy opens the fridge. He stares in at the roast beef that’s taking up most of the space inside, a plastic-wrapped monster. Stares at the stacks of ancient jars and sauce bottles that are balanced around it. The dishes of potato salads and lasagnes and casseroles that are still in there, that are spilling from the freezer, too.

He closes the door. His fingers grip the fridge handle. The television is on in the living room, a barely audible hum of old movie stars talking in their nowhere accents. He doesn’t recognise them from here. He wets his lips. 

Thirsty. Right. He opens the fridge again. Takes a jug of water from the door and gets a glass from the draining rack beside the sink. Downs the water in icy gulps that make his throat clench.

He fills the glass again then moves through into the living room. It’s empty. He’d thought his mother would be in here with the television, but she’s not. It’s dark, just the black and white and blue light spilling from the old set as Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan face away from each other in a restaurant. 

He sees the remote on the coffee table and jams the power button. The image flickers then vanishes. 

The room is quiet.

Jimmy looks to the empty armchair in the corner, the one with the big space in the air around it. Runs his finger and thumb over his lips again. Slumps down instead on the sofa closest to the TV.

The set is a dark thing, now. The ghost of old stars in the blackness. The hum of the cathode-ray tubes settling. The invisible static fuzz that clings to the surface like a blanket, like a protective layer. Like snow on a windscreen, waiting to be wiped away. 

Somewhere, a door opens and closes. 

He sinks into the sofa. Feels a tightening at the back of his skull, like a hand grabbing his head. A deliberate pressure. He sinks even deeper into the sofa. His arms and legs are finished for the day, finished for the year—finished, finished. 

The screen is black and glowing and hard to look away from. 

He drains the glass of water in his hand, ice cold grips on his throat. 

He thinks he’s shrinking. Thinks his whole body is pulling in, becoming smaller, tightening and tightening on itself like a rubber band, forced inward and inward until it’s one thing, one ball of Jimmy about the size of the palm of his hand.

He looks at his hand. 

“Jimmy?” a voice says. “Everything okay?” 

Jimmy turns his head to face the sound. His brain swims in his skull, shifting through water. 

Chuck flicks on the living room light and walks over, a robe belted around his waist. He sniffs. Sniffs again. “Jesus,” he says, “are you high?” 

Jimmy grins. “Why, you want some?” 

“Christ, Jimmy,” Chuck says. “What’ll Mom think?” 

He turns his head again, swimmingly, and closes his eyes. “Mom doesn’t care.”

Chuck exhales, sharp and short through his nose, and then there’s silence. 

But Jimmy doesn’t hear footsteps. Just the same dark silence of the living room, the same loud hollowness. And he misses the nowhere-accented arguments of the old movie now, misses the two people in the restaurant pretending not to be in love. He grunts after a while, prying his eyes open. “Where _is_ Mom?” 

A huff from Chuck, who’s still in the doorway. “It’s the middle of the night, she ought to be asleep.”

Jimmy narrows his eyes. 

“She’s watching _Kojak_ ,” Chuck says. He exhales again through his nose. 

Jimmy laughs softly. “‘Course she is.” The darkness of the TV seems to rise out of the set now, the perfect black square of no movie stars and no restaurants and no Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan talking about handbags and suitcases and cigarette lighters. 

Finally, Chuck moves away, soft footsteps heading back toward the hall. 

“Night, Chuck,” Jimmy says quietly. 

The footsteps stop. Chuck’s voice comes eventually, gruff and slow: “Night. See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Jimmy says. He scratches his cheek, tipping his head back against the top of the sofa. Brushes his hair out of his eyes. 

“Lights on or off?” Chuck asks. 

Jimmy runs his fingers over his mouth. “Off,” he says, finally. “I’ll come up soon.” 

“Good,” Chuck says. He flicks the switch. Darkness. 

Darkness and nothing, just breathing, just footsteps heading into the hall and up the stairs and silence. 

Jimmy falls further into the sofa. He can feel the warmth of the fabric through his shirt, seeping into the skin of his back, his spine, like warm water. 

But the rest of his body is freezing. Like outside, where the cold presses with long fingers against the windows, and the snow falls, like it has for the last three winters, hard and heavy. People died in the storm last winter, people died out in the snow, and still the shelves of the store had to be stocked and the floor had to be swept and if he wasn’t going to get a real job then the least he could do was help out and man the register and do something about his hair—

Jimmy tightens his hand. There’s a dull pain across the base of his thumb, and he tilts his palm to look at the scab there, long and black and puckered in the darkness. 

He runs a finger over the textured surface. Still sore. Almost healed. 

It hasn’t been long enough for it to have scabbed over. It can’t have been. But there it is: scabbed, flaking, ready to fall away and leave pink new skin. Three weeks, over three weeks. He runs a finger over it again and then drops his hand. 

Eventually, Jimmy gets his limbs to listen to him again, and he lifts himself back out of the sofa, climbing up through the air. He picks up his empty glass from the carpet and carries it to the sink, then shuffles upstairs, his hand trailing the bannister. As he climbs, he can hear the TV going in his parents’ room, gruff-voiced policemen with New York accents. They shout to each other as he moves down the hall.

He stops before the next door. The lights from the TV are flashing inside, and he can see the end of the bed. His mother’s slippered feet lie on top of the covers. Old and patchwork with worn circles on the bottom. 

When he takes another step, she’s staring out at him. He can’t read the expression on her face. He moves inside the room, turning to look at the tiny television set. 

A muscle car is racing down a city street. A loud screech of tires and men shouting. He watches for another minute or two, then says, “What’s happening?” 

“Chasing a killer,” Ruth murmurs. 

Jimmy nods. He watches the car swerve through the streets in a blur of shapes—the car itself dark and black, past orange-grey roads and past orange-grey buildings and every now and then there’s a glimpse of green, the killer’s car in the distance. 

When the chase ends, when the men start talking again, he sees them only as beige spots of color on the dark screen, and he leans against the wall beside the bed, and he slides down it slowly, until his knees are up by his ears and the holes in his old jeans are right there and his fingertips are pressing into the loose old carpet. 

The phantom hand on the back of his skull is loosening its grip now. It’s replaced by a real one, his mother’s, her palm light against his hair. She strokes the long threads back from his forehead, soft and tingling trails of pressure that stand his roots on end, that spread down inside him. 

It’s like trickling water, like a sponge squeezed and wrung out above him. 

Until it’s too much. He jerks his head away and she pulls her hand back. Jimmy pushes himself back to his feet with a groan, pressing a palm against the wall. It’s the one with the cut on the base of his thumb, and he feels the dull almost-pain of the scab. Draws his hand back and stands there, studying it again. 

Three weeks and it’s healed already.

“Get some sleep,” his mother says. 

Jimmy looks up. Nods. 

“Night, honey,” she says, and she looks back to the television. The pale light of it throws shadows against her face. She looks old. Jimmy hadn’t noticed her getting older. She has deep lines around her mouth now. Beside her eyes. Probably in other subtle places he’s too familiar with to see even now. 

He nods again, finally, and starts to shuffle away. Back over the worn carpet and out into the hallway and down to his own room, where he doesn’t turn on the light, where he just sits on the end of his bed with his hands curled against the edge of the bedspread, looking out the window. 

Ice curls up the glass, tendrils of frost. The curtains are drawn in the house next door, but he can see the Christmas lights glowing through them, flashing red then green then red again. Hazy through the lace and fabric and glass. 

He does it for old time’s sake, he guesses. Old time’s sake or tradition or ‘cause he’s not even really thinking much about it before he’s pulling on shoes and standing in front of the glass and wedging his fingers under the old wooden edge and then forcing the window up. He breathes in sharply, cold air stinging, and then he clambers out, wedging the side of his sneaker against the lip of metal drainpipe running sideways along the outer wall. Clamping the bottom of the window between his knees as he pauses there with his hands on the frame, with his eyes closed and the world spinning. He catches his breath in the cold, in the moments before his fingers freeze, then he twists the other leg around over the window. 

He drops with a thump to the ground, landing in the loose way he’s supposed to, rolling onto the side of his hip. He lies in the snow for a moment, catching his breath, and then he stands. His limbs feel alive now, suddenly, feel ready to move, feel like they’re ahead of his brain instead of behind it, and he heads off through the backyard, leaving a trail of footsteps across the unmarked snow to the gate. 

* * *

Jimmy cuts through a gap in the houses, a little accessway that’s only a bit wider than his shoulders, a dirt path between two tall wooden fences, and then he’s out on his street. He crosses it, the snow cover thick, ready for the plows to come through in the morning. 

He didn’t grab a jacket and the cold is pressing tightly against his thin shirt, climbing up his spine and his neck as he moves faster along the sidewalk, from tree to tree, the streetlamps dropping yellow skirts that haze in the dark. 

The house at the end of the block is always tidy. Neat lines of decorations hang from the eaves, and the well-mown yard is hidden under the snow but still obvious, still visible in the clean and sharp way the white covers it. 

Jimmy leaves a line of footsteps up to the front door. Feels like he’s leaving a trail of steam from his breath behind him, too. He knocks, then folds his arms tightly, rocking on the balls of his feet. The projector is going inside, loud and blaring. 

The door opens, and Marco stands in the threshold. He’s wearing matched pajamas, blue and grey checkered flannel. His eyes widen. 

“Hey, man,” Jimmy says, grinning. 

“Jeez, you okay, buddy?” Marco says, looking down at Jimmy’s jeans, all covered in snow from the fall from the window. 

“Snuck out,” Jimmy says, “like old times.” He tightens his arms against his chest, then laughs, shuddering. “So, can I come in or what?”

“Oh—yeah, yeah man, c’mon,” Marco says, stepping back and beckoning Jimmy inside then closing the door. He gestures to the living room, where the 16mm projector flickers and enormous bowls of popcorn and chips are balanced between empty cans of beer. “We’re watchin’ _The Mack_.” 

Marco’s uncle is leant back in a recliner, his glasses glimmering with the reflected light of the TV. As they enter, he glances over, his face barely changing. 

“Hey, Uncle Stevie,” Jimmy says, holding up a hand. 

Stevie nods his head. After a moment, he leans forward in his chair, groaning, and pulls a can of beer from a six pack, then straightens and holds it out to Jimmy with an oil-stained hand. 

Jimmy takes it.

“How’s your mom, kid?” Stevie asks, scratching the side of his head. “She’s not alone, is she?” 

Jimmy cracks open the beer before answering, a loud hiss. He shrugs. “Chuck’s with her. She’s okay.” Nods to Stevie’s hands. “Been working on it today, then?” 

Stevie chuckles. “Almost got her running earlier, ya know,” he says. “We’ll be driving any week now, just you wait.” He clears his throat and runs a thumb over his moustache, then looks back to the screen. Max Julien is throwing cash in the air and spinning. 

Jimmy lowers himself to the long sofa beside Marco, who smiles over to him. He folds his legs up beneath him and tugs a patterned blanket over his lap. Props his head on his palm, elbow on the arm of the sofa, and watches the movie, lets it wash over him in gunfire and music and laughter. 

The cold beer gets warm in his other hand; he keeps forgetting to drink it. 

Stevie chortles at the movie, rapid barks of sound, and Jimmy smiles. Marco gets up to make more popcorn, and Jimmy eats it from the bag, warm and buttery and greasy on his fingers and around his lips. 

The rush of energy that had hit him outside is gone again in the warmth of the familiar place. He sinks deeper and deeper.

Eventually, the film ends. Stevie lets out a big sigh, then rises to his feet, palms on the arms of his recliner. He looks over to Jimmy and makes a face, a soft and almost nervous-looking thing that Jimmy’s been seeing too much recently, and then he sighs. “I’ll leave you boys alone,” he says. 

He picks up a couple of beers then moves through the living room, laying a soft hand on Jimmy’s knee as he passes. It leaves a ghost behind it, a lingering warmth. 

“So, what next?” Marco says, sitting forward, eyes glittering. “Stevie got in some new stuff, and we still gotta watch _Midnight Express,_ right?—or, hey man, _Marathon Man_ again?” He holds up his hand like he’s gripping a dental tool. “Is it safe? _Is it safe?_ ”

Jimmy chuckles softly. He closes his eyes. “Yes, it’s safe,” he murmurs after a while. “It’s so safe you wouldn’t believe it.” 

The sofa dips beside him, and he opens his eyes to see Marco sitting there with his legs crossed. 

Jimmy shakes his head. “No, it’s not safe,” he says slowly, holding his hands up. “It’s very dangerous, be careful.”

But Marco doesn’t laugh or play along anymore. His face is unusually sombre. “Man,” he says, and his brows draw together, “maybe you should go home.” He swallows. “I mean—you can stay here if you want, but, y’know, your mom.”

Jimmy looks away. “She’s fine. She’s got Chuck.”

Marco is quiet. When he speaks again, his voice is fragile sounding. “Yeah, I know, man, but…”

Jimmy curls his hand into a loose fist. Thuds it down against his thigh. 

“All right, all right,” Marco says. He stands again now, moving over to his uncle’s enormous 16mm collection. “D’you want, uh…comedy, maybe, _Mad, Mad World?_ ” 

Jimmy tightens his fist. He can feel the lightness coming off Marco in waves, now, the fake easy-going voice he’s heard too much over the last three weeks, the one he hates. But he doesn’t know if he prefers the intensely serious voice much either. 

He guesses he just wishes Marco would stop talking completely, or finally figure out the right thing to say.

He thuds his fist down again. “Maybe I should call her.”

Marco turns, mouth open. “Who?”

Jimmy shrugs. “Claire.” 

And Marco’s mouth slowly closes. He swallows. “Jimmy.”

He shakes his head. “Maybe she’s back home for the holidays, y’know? Maybe she’d wanna talk. It’s not like we didn’t make it official…or officially unofficial, I guess.”

“What about Patty?”

Jimmy sighs. “Nah, that’s done,” he mutters. “She dumped me.”

Marco blinks, tilting his head.

“Yeah, all those years hanging out, good to know we only had a couple weeks of it really in us, I guess,” Jimmy says. “No more questions now, huh?”

And Marco chuckles, back to the light fake-happy thing. “What, you didn’t treat her right?”

“Hey, man, I treated her plenty right,” Jimmy says, but his heart’s not in it. He knows Marco can tell. He tips his head back against the sofa again and imagines himself sinking into the old fabric again, swallowed up by the foam. Clodding his lungs. 

Marco moves closer. “I’ll make up the foldout for ya, okay?” he says, and Jimmy squints at him as he bustles off into the laundry, as he comes back with sheets and a comforter. 

“Thanks, man,” Jimmy murmurs. He finishes his warm beer and wets his lips, then closes his eyes, tucked up under the familiar-smelling checkered blanket, his cheek hot against his palm, or his palm hot against his cheek, one or the other or both, until he drifts off to sleep there on the sofa, drifts off to sleep to the sound of Marco shaking out sheets and tucking in blankets and the springs in the old foldout creaking and settling. 

* * *

Jimmy steps in through the front door the next morning, kicking snow off his soles. The house smells like roast beef, warm and comforting, like always. Cary Grant is talking in the living room, like always— _I’ll be with you in a minute, I’ll be with you in a minute!_ Jimmy slides off his sneakers. He walks on socked feet toward the sound of the television, scratching a stubbled cheek and yawning. 

Chuck is sitting in the living room, his blond hair shining and perfectly parted, the newspaper in his hand and a black tea on the coffee table before him. He looks up at Jimmy and is still. 

“Morning,” Jimmy says, walking inside. 

Chuck stiffens, rising from the sofa and meeting Jimmy halfway. “Where were you?”

Jimmy shrugs. “Marco’s.”

Chuck inches closer, eyes deathly cold. “Mom was worried half to death.”

And Jimmy laughs. “No, she wasn’t.” 

Chuck’s expression flickers. “For Christ’s sake, it’s _Christmas_.”

“So?” Jimmy says. He shrugs, arms loose and almost manic. “What does that matter?” 

Chuck huffs, straightening the sleeves of one of his nice new shirts, one of the ones Jimmy knows he bought when he got his clerkship last year. The ones that hang on him perfectly like a second skin. 

And Jimmy brushes past him, striding into the living room. Cary Grant is still shouting on the television, and Jimmy wants to turn off the damn classic movies channel for _once_ , wants to find something different to watch, wants to see something that he doesn’t know backward and forward and over and over, always the same. 

He stands there breathing, hands at his sides, fingernails pressing against the scab on his palm. He can hear the shattering of the glass. 

And then his energy leaves him again, like water running down a drain, turning and twisting over on itself in black ribbons. He feels his limbs fall, and he sits on the close sofa again, his hands pressed tight into his pockets. Looks over to the armchair in the corner. Finds his lighter in his pocket and runs his thumb over the sparkwheel, textured surface brushing against his skin. 

Ruth comes into the living room a little later. She doesn’t say anything—she just sits in her usual spot and watches the movie. Chuck carries his tea over to the dining table and perches at the end closest to them, marking up the newspaper with his pen. Making little humming noises every so often. 

The tree in the corner of the living room flickers with lights, tucked in the corner beside the television. The old winking angel is perched on the top, her halo lopsided. Presents shine beneath the branches. 

Jimmy closes his eyes. 

“Oh, this is the good bit,” his mother says softly, after a time. 

He opens them again, and she’s looking at him. He gives her a small smile. 

“Come on, honey, watch the movie with me,” she says, turning to the TV, eyes sparkling with it. 

He shrugs. “Not much of a Christmas movie, you know.”

“Well, it’s _The Bishop’s Wife_ up next,” she says. “Just wait.” 

He huffs, but he turns back to the television. Katharine Hepburn starts singing. “So d’you bribe them to get all these Cary Grant picks every year, or what?” 

“Oh, honey, I think they just have good taste,” his mother says mildly. 

Jimmy laughs now, quiet and raspy. He draws his feet up beneath him, cross legged, and watches the black and white stars flicker on the screen. 

* * *

“Anyway, how's it all going, honey?” Ruth asks later, around the table. She hands a dish of lasagne to Jimmy and then turns back to Chuck, her eyebrows turned down. “I hope they’re treating you well.”

Chuck nods. “Well, it _is_ tough. They always pick someone out of Georgetown and they expect the best, of course. But the Chancery experience is just invaluable.”

Jimmy serves himself some lasagne, then sets down the dish.

“…and I’ve spoken with some graduates who went right into practice and, well.” Chuck widens his eyes. “Some of them still barely know their heads from a hole in the ground when it comes to corporate litigation. I have to wonder what their firm partners are teaching them.” 

Ruth makes a faint sound of agreement, then holds her hand out to accept the dish of potato salad. Jimmy forks a load of roast beef onto his plate, layering the slices of meat over everything else

“It’s not forever though, of course,” Chuck says. 

Jimmy forks up a mouthful of lasagne. Chews slowly. Pokes at it on the plate. It’s hard to tell what’s in it. It looks like meat but it doesn’t taste like it. “Who gave us this one?” he asks, glancing at his mother. 

Ruth frowns. “I think that was Judy from down the road.” She has a mouthful of hers, then shrugs. “Why?” 

“Bit weird,” Jimmy mutters.

She chuckles, eyes flashing just a little. “I’ll let her know, shall I?” 

Jimmy smiles. “Yeah, okay,” he says. He moves his fork again, then lowers it. “Roast beef’s good though, thanks, Mom.”

“Of course,” she says. “It was nothing.” 

“Delicious,” Chuck murmurs. 

They eat in silence for a while, or at least the others do, and Jimmy pushes his food around on his plate. He shifts the lasagne and potato salad back and forth, like if he moves it enough it’ll eventually taste normal again.

The stereo is going in the other room, old Bing Crosby, but at least he’s not singing about Christmas. 

* * *

Jimmy stands with his hands in the kitchen sink, the water hot and soapy against his skin. He holds them there for a minute, then reaches for another dish, dunking it under the water, the food-stained interior flooding with bubbles. He scrubs at it slowly, around and around. 

Sets the last dish in the rack. The water runs down the drain. 

In the living room, the television is going again. Jimmy lingers at the edge of the kitchen, just out of sight. The fridge is humming beside him. The phone hangs on the wall nearby, its cord looped and tangled. The television seems to get even louder. 

And Jimmy turns and goes to the mudroom instead, snagging his coat from the hook and then heading through and around to the staircase, walking upstairs on careful socked feet. He passes his parents’s room, passes his own room. Pushes through into the bathroom and sits on the closed toilet. Fishes in his coat pocket for the bag of weed and papers, hands quaking. The bathroom feels cold, the tiles freezing up through his socks. 

His fingers shake as he tries to roll the joint, the paper trembling and fluttering, and he grits his teeth. Forces himself to be still. Keeps his hands steady. The cold from the tiles presses against his soles. He closes his eyes and tries to feel it grounding him, pulling him into the little ball. 

The bathroom door swings inward, and he opens his eyes again.

Chuck’s there, his palm on the wood, his nice new shirt tucked in and his hair parted. 

And Jimmy smiles, half-hearted. “Want in?”

Chuck steps into the bathroom. He holds out his hand. “Give me that.”

“What?” Jimmy says, and he laughs again. “Are you kidding?” 

“No,” Chuck says, and he moves closer. “Give it to me.”

Jimmy turns his body away, dropping the half-rolled joint back into the bag, hands still shaking. But he stands and shoves the plastic bag into the pocket of his jeans. Brushes past Chuck and back out into the hallway, his footfalls heavy. 

Chuck trails him. “Honestly, Jimmy, running off, getting high—” 

“Yeah, so I’m gonna head to Marco’s, I’ll be back later—” 

“You are _not_ ,” Chuck spits, and he grips Jimmy’s arm and tugs him into the nearest room—Chuck’s room. Chuck closes the door and lets go. “You’re going to stay here.”

Jimmy breathes heavily. The room is perfect—the bed’s made, even. Chuck woke up early on damn Christmas Day and made his bed. The shelves along the walls are filled with old textbooks and golden debating trophies. 

Chuck stands amongst them, just as towering, just as statuesque as the sculpted figures. 

So Jimmy backs up, his palms out. “Okay, man, I’ll stay,” he says. He turns now, running his fingertip over the top of a line of trophies. “I’ll stay here…” Touches the top of a little golden head. 

“You need to step up, for once,” Chuck says after a while, his arms folded now. “You need to take care of her.”

Jimmy looks up. “Take _care_ of her?”

Chuck breathes through his nose. 

And Jimmy chills, ice running down from his stomach to the floor. He inhales, trying to catch his breath, because it’s somehow gone. He feels like he’s shrinking again, getting smaller and smaller, or maybe the room’s getting bigger, one or the other or both. 

Chuck’s talking: “Jimmy, you need to actually listen—”

Jimmy shakes his head, and grits his teeth, and spits, “Stop it, Chuck.” He exhales, then shakes his head again. “Stop trying to be him.”

Chuck quietens finally, his mouth hanging open. His eyes are pale and shining. 

“Stop trying to be him,” Jimmy says again, almost whispering now. His chest rises and falls quickly. “You’re _nothing_ like him.” 

The silence fills the room, thick and heavy. “Jimmy…” Chuck says, his hand reaching out. 

And Jimmy takes a step back. “No—just _stop_ ,” he says, holding up his hands again. “Just stop, stop pretending, stop—” He inhales shakily, then looks away. 

Chuck makes an impatient little noise. “Honestly, Jimmy,” he says, and his affected accent seems even stronger than usual, even less like the suburb he grew up in. “Mom doesn’t need this right now—”

Jimmy closes his eyes again, feeling the carpet through his feet—

“—deserves more than this, after everything she’s gone through, and the least you could do—” 

Jimmy flicks his eyes open, and it’s enough to silence his brother. He swallows. “You want me to be here for her?” he says, finally, throwing the words into the space between them. “Right?” 

Chuck is still, just waiting. 

“Right,” Jimmy says brightly, waving his hands. “So where were you? Where were you, _Chuck?”_ And he moves to the door now, shoving past his brother then turning back. He jabs a finger. “‘Cause I’ve been here the whole time, man. I was there in the hospital, I was there when he was awake, when he wasn’t, I was there, I was there, I was _fucking_ there—” gasping, harsh “—so _where were you?”_

His brother stands, almost frozen to the spot, still looking at the place where Jimmy used to be. 

“Oh right, you were at some fucking Chauncey Gardner—” 

“Court of Chancery.”

And Jimmy throws out his hands. “Court of motherfucking Chancery. Congratulations.” He opens the door, then pauses with his palm on the handle. “You go down and talk to Mom,” he says softly. “You go down and take care of her like some animal that can’t look after itself. You go do that, Chuck, and I’m gonna go to Marco’s.” He breathes out. “I’ll come back when you’re fuckin’ gone again.”

And he throws the door open, slamming it against the wall. He strides through and out into the hallway, where he stops. Looks back through the open threshold. His brother stands inside, frozen with stiff shoulders, surrounded by old textbooks and golden debating trophies. Strung yellow lights droop from the gutter, curving along the top of the window, a hanging arch of gold that glimmers behind his brother’s head. There’s a stray hair at the nape of his neck, come loose from the neatly-combed rest of it.

The lights shine and dim and glow. 

And Chuck just stands there like some eternal figure cast in bronze or marble, some fleeting god come to cast his eye over Jimmy and pass judgement, and Jimmy burns with it. Burns and burns and turns away, thudding down the stairs and throwing open the back door and standing out in the snow and the cold and the neon white. 

* * *

He stops out there on the back porch, breathing hard. His heart quickens, thudding inside his chest, and it feels like panic. It feels like panic and he doesn’t know what to do about it. Doesn’t know how to stop it, doesn’t know how to make his body understand. _He_ doesn’t understand. He’s still waiting for it all to change back.

He rests his hand on the cold weatherboard. The panic moves, a physical beat of the sensation, sliding beneath his skin. 

He doesn’t understand how it’s possible. How something can just _happen_ one day. How this can be the way of the world, and he just has to get over it. 

He doesn’t understand what power can do that, what power can change things like this, can lift people from the places they’ve always been and never ever give them back. 

* * *

The smoke scratches at the back of his throat. 

Jimmy leans against the side of the house, his windbreaker zipped up tight. He coughs, pressing his fist to his mouth. 

Last night brought more snow, and his and Chuck’s footsteps over the backyard are covered up again now. A pure sheet of white, like paper, ready to be written on again. 

He takes another drag. He bought the smokes in the airport, a brand that tastes like afternoons and dark parking garages. 

Inside, he can hear the muffled voices of his family, talking again now. He can hear Rebecca’s tentative laughter. Or maybe it’s Katharine Hepburn. Maybe it’s a Cary Grant movie on the television.

Because it’s always a Cary Grant movie on the television. The same old stars on the same old sets, telling the same old stories and poking at the same old wounds. 

He drops the cigarette, snubbing it out in the snow.

Exhales in ghostly breath. 

Then, like he always does, he turns around, and he goes back inside. 


	12. Stimulus, or: parasitic connections

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey everyone! i updated chapter 10 with some incredible owl cafe art from atlanticalien, in case you missed it. go check it out!
> 
> thanks for reading, and i hope you enjoy ♥️♥️♥️

Jimmy wipes his hand over his upper lip, then lays his palm on the desk. Before him: the LSAT, its white papers like a window cut into the dark wood. The more he looks at them, the brighter the pages seem, and he remembers sitting here in October, remembers the fresh-paint smell of the exam room. 

It doesn’t smell of fresh paint anymore. The mint-colored walls have dried now, and colorful posters are tacked up along them, promotional things for the University of New Mexico, laughing students having a much better time than anyone in the room itself. Instead of paint, the room somehow already smells like dust, smells like opening an old book. 

There’s fewer people taking the test than last time, too. The place is only half full, and Jimmy is sitting at a different desk today, right near the windows, so he can see the whole space. In last time’s spot sits a lanky kid, blond curtains surrounding his head on all sides like a fluffy monk, the hair at the base of his skull shaved short. 

The kid’s twirling a pen between his forefinger and middle finger, flashes of blue. 

Along the upright edge of Jimmy’s desk, someone has marked a long row of vertical lines, bars of blue pen up the wood. Some other prisoner counting down the days.

He jiggles his knee. Tips his head back. Square white lights divide the dropped ceiling like a chessboard, and the black spaces on the board are the grey ceiling tiles, pockmarked with tiny dots. 

At the far end of the room, beneath the king’s space, sits the examiner. She waits with her fingers linked. A clock hangs on the wall behind her, yellow faced with red hands. The hands turn slowly, crawling little by little to the top of the hour. 

Jimmy stares at the yellow clock face and divides it into chunks of time. This much for the first section. This much for the first _question_ of the first section. Over and over for three and a half hours. 

Then someone in the room clicks their pen, like a starter’s pistol, and the time ticks over, and the examiner makes the announcement, and the LSAT begins. 

* * *

_Question 1. Our tomato soup provides good nutrition: for instance, a warm bowl of it contains more units of vitamin C than does a serving of apricots or fresh carrots!_

_The advertisement is misleading if which one of the following is true?_

* * *

“…and remember to read the end of it first, okay?” Kim says, sitting beside him on the long bench. “Read the question stem first.”

It’s bright and warm, one of the first bright and warm days of the year, of almost-spring. A pond ripples around the two of them where they sit on a little peninsula of manicured land. 

It feels like they’re on an island. 

“I know, I know,” Jimmy says. His study papers flutter on the bench between them, but the wind’s not strong enough to lift the bull-clipped bundle. “Just in case I die before I can finish reading the first bit, right?”

“The stimulus, the first part’s the stimulus.”

He smiles back at her. “Kim, I know that,” he says, softly. 

She nods. “Yeah, well,” she says, and she looks at the fluttering study guide she’s helped him put together over the last couple of months. “Good.”

“Good,” Jimmy echoes, and he breathes out. 

The clouds above the campus are tea-stained with orange sunlight. The water makes low noises against the shore. Over the pond, between a copse of tall trees, is the path that twists around to the geometric examination building. He and Kim had walked to the door together earlier that evening. The outside had been freshly painted, the front face now outlined with vibrant blue borders, the beige walls brighter than they’d been last time Jimmy was here. 

He turns to Kim. “You sure they don’t need you at HHM? I mean, if I don’t know this by now, I’ll never know it, right?”

She looks back to him from the pond, as if she’s been running through his plan for tomorrow in her mind again. “Who told you that?” she says. “You can _always_ know more.”

He chuckles. “Yeah?”

She makes a noise of agreement, short and decisive.

He waves a hand. “Sure, and I guess on the bar exam your score of, what, five-hundred thousand—” 

“—not five—” 

“— _five-hundred thousand_ could’ve been a five-oh-oh-one if I hadn’t dragged you out to Flying Star the night before the test.”

She shrugs lightly. “And we’ll never know now, will we?” 

He shakes his head, bangs drifting into his eyes with the wind. A group of ducks paddle toward the shore of his and Kim’s island then turn back, synchronous. The lead duck stops and dips its beak into the dark water. The spreading ripples hold flashes of the sun. 

And Kim says softly, “So how are you feeling about tomorrow?”

He turns from the ducks. Her brow creases as she looks at him. He shrugs. “Same as I felt last time.”

She glances down to the study papers, eyes glinting. 

“Nah, I mean,” Jimmy says, shifting his weight, twisting toward her, “I don’t know, Kim.” 

Her expression softens. Her eyes are blue-flecked in the sideways light, locked to his, then her gaze shifts to the pond again. The low sun clings to the curve of her cheek. Her forehead crinkles. 

He knows she’s returned to the game plan, knows she’s running over tomorrow in her mind. He smiles. “Wishing it was you, huh?” 

And she looks to him, an eyebrow lifting. 

Jimmy jerks his head in the general direction of the exam building. “Your favorite thing,” he says. “But instead you have to do the set up, the study plan, the test trip, and now Howard’s probably going to kick you back to the mailroom because you deigned to leave before midnight on a Friday. And then tomorrow it’ll all come down to—” he points a thumb at his face “—this schmuck.” 

She smiles, tilting her head. 

“And, lemme tell you, this schmuck’s already proved what _he’s_ capable of,” Jimmy says, widening his eyes at her, as if he can turn them into two big fat zeroes, sitting there above his cheeks. 

But Kim is shaking her head now. “Jimmy, I’d be happy to never sit that test again in my life.” 

Jimmy raises his brows. “Yeah?”

“Are you kidding?” she says, and she leans back on the bench, hands rising and waving for emphasis. “It was horrible, the clock ticking down, feeling like I’m getting further and further behind time with every question—”

“Okay, okay—” 

“—hand shaking as I try to fill in the bubbles—”

“All right, fine, just shut up,” Jimmy says, grinning. “I guess I can take this one.”

“Yeah, well, you’d better,” Kim says lightly. She taps her hand on the edge of the bench.

And they stare out at the pond, where the ducks are approaching the shoreline of their tiny island again, leaving trails through the dark water. Storming the beaches. 

The papers flutter loudly in a stronger wind, and Jimmy stills them with a palm. He keeps his hand on top until the wind drops. Picks the bundle up. The top page is covered with Kim’s neat handwriting, the sheet divided cleanly into two columns. In red pen on the left are the different sections of the LSAT; on the right, the different question types. 

Kim looks over to him again. He holds out the study papers, and she takes them, shifting closer over the bench.

One more time… 

* * *

_Question 2. The workers at Bell Manufacturing will shortly go on strike unless the management increases their wages. As Bell’s president is well aware, however, in order to increase the workers’ wages, Bell would have to sell off some of its subsidiaries. So, some of Bell’s subsidiaries will be sold._

_The conclusion above is properly drawn if which one of the following is assumed?_

* * *

“Do you want the main lights on?” Kim asks, lingering in the doorway of the second floor conference room. 

Jimmy looks up at the ceiling. “Nah,” he says, and he looks back down to the line of lamps in the middle of the table. “I’m good with just these if you are.”

She nods, moving inside and setting her box down on the table with an echoing thud. 

“Thanks,” he says softly. He rubs at his forehead, the pads of his fingers firm against his skin. 

“Headache?” Kim asks, moving back to close the door.

He lowers his hand. “Nah, I’m good.” He touches the textbook on the table in front of him, then tilts his head at her. “So, what’re we doing tonight?” 

Her eyes flick to him. 

“Kidding, kidding,” he says, “just testin’ ya.” He flicks through the book Kim loaned him. It’s riddled with her own notes, and he peels back a Post-It from a page. “I’ve been dying to talk about necessary assumptions all day.” 

Kim smiles, lifting a covered plate of pastries from the file box and setting it on the table. Still waiting in the box, he knows, is whatever work she’s carried up from the cornfield tonight, and, by the noise it made when it landed on the table, he can tell it’s even more work than usual. 

He tops up his mug of coffee, then fills the empty one that’s been waiting for her and slides it over. 

“Sure that’s the best thing for your headache?” Kim murmurs, as she sits next to him, swiveling the chair to face the desk.

Jimmy just watches her. 

She shakes her head. “Right, right,” she says, holding up a palm. 

He grabs one of the pastries—apricot, maybe—and polishes off the stale thing then washes it down with another long swig of lukewarm coffee. “So!” he says, dusting his hands. “Confused myself with this one.”

Kim brushes pastry from her own fingers and lifts her eyebrows. 

“I read everything—loved this note, by the way,” he says, tapping a page in Kim’s book where there’s a pencil-marked, _Obviously!_

She inclines her head. 

“But…so I don’t need to worry about if the conclusion’s actually true or not?” he says, looking between her and the book. “What if it doesn’t seem right?” 

“Well,” she says, “that’s a good question.” 

He goes in for another one of the day’s leftover pastries. Chocolate this time, and he lets out a little, _mm!_ noise, then brushes his fingers off above the plate again. 

“Why doesn’t this seem right? I mean,” she says, pointing to the page in the workbook, leaning closer, “so the conclusion here is that Julie won’t be able to attend her water aerobics class.” 

“Right,” Jimmy says, nodding sharply. “I got that, sure. But what if her class is late in the evening, like this?” He turns to the windows behind them, black squares, the cold January night waiting outside. He turns back. “Maybe she does her water dancing at midnight, too, so then it wouldn’t even matter that her boss needs her to stay until nine o’clock.”

Kim’s nodding. “Right!”

He holds up his palms hopelessly. “So?”

She smiles softly. “Well, that’s what this type of question is asking for, Jimmy.” She ghosts a finger down the list of answers. “One of these is the right missing piece of the argument. You knew that it didn’t feel right. One of these options will turn it into a valid conclusion.”

Jimmy nods slowly. His eyes scan the writing, trailing over the question, the conclusion, the possible answers. He looks to Kim. “So my job is to _make_ it true?”

Her smile stays, glowing. “We can start there.”

The rest of the room is dark, and it’s dark outside, and everything is just the line of glowing lamps down the middle of the table, and their hands working, and the soft hue of the lights on the table’s surface in a sea of black. 

* * *

_Question 3. Roses always provide a stunning display of color, but only those flowers that smell sweet are worth growing in a garden. Some roses have no scent._

_Which one of the following conclusions can be properly drawn from the passage?_

* * *

The teeth move in and out of the sun. The hand holding them is scrunched like an empty wrapper. At the end of the hand is a spotted arm and at the end of the arm is his grandpa. 

Jimmy looks away and slides his matchbox car over the dirt. You can’t drive on the petals, only the dirt and the grass. The big red car can drive on the petals, but he’s playing with the little blue one. 

When Jimmy looks up at his grandpa, he can’t see a face because of the sun, just the teeth on the end of the hand on the end of the arm. 

But then his grandpa moves, sitting on a different patch of grass and creaking like Pop’s chair way back home. “Huh, kiddo?” Grandpa Davenport puts the teeth back into his dark mouth and then smiles. “See? Just like that.”

Jimmy steers the little blue car around a petal, tires screeching. 

The big voice says, “You racing? What’s the prize?”

He shrugs.

“Hah!” his grandpa spits. “You’ve got to have a prize for the winner, kid.”

Jimmy drives the car to the finish line, then he shrugs again. 

“Got something here, actually,” Grandpa says, hand curling into the front pocket of his striped shirt. “Might work.” And he shows a shiny coin in the scrunchy palm of his dark hand. 

Jimmy’s parents are over the grass: his mother in the big yellow hat and his father in the green jacket. 

“So? What d’you think?” Grandpa says. 

“Okay,” Jimmy says, and he reaches for the coin. 

The crinkled fingers close. “Not so fast, kid,” the old man says. “I earned it, and now you gotta earn it from me.”

The ridged fingers are like some animal guarding the treasure. A dragon. Jimmy tips his head. “How?”

“Hmm,” his grandpa says, and his old face turns up to the sun. The lines under his chin stretch and pull. “I’m gonna need a good young memory by my side, soon.” He smiles toothily at Jimmy. “Can you remember where the quarter is?” 

Jimmy points to the scrunched dragon hand. 

“Yeah?” Grandpa says, shaking the dragon. “In here?”

Jimmy nods. 

The hand turns over again and the fingers uncurl and it’s empty. 

“You dropped it!” Jimmy says, and he bends down to look at the grass and petals beneath his grandpa’s hand. Nothing there. He looks at the hand again, at the lined palm. “It was there!” He frowns. “Not fair.” 

“Fair?” his grandpa says, and it’s almost like his dad when Jimmy repeated the word Marco told him. “Who said anything about that?”

Jimmy frowns. He picks up a dark green leaf and tears it down the line and then drops the little sharp pieces. “Chuck,” he mutters. “I hid a toy from Maxie in the throwing game.”

His grandpa makes a sound with his loose teeth. “Prff! I’m nearly seventy years old, kid. You listen to me. If everything was fair I wouldn’t have had that quarter in the first place.” 

Over the grass, the yellow hat of his mother stands and moves back toward the house. It’s a short, white house with dark windows. His mother says that his Grandpa Davenport built the house a long time ago, on this square of grass and dirt and flower gardens beside fences. 

“Besides,” the big gravelly voice says, leaning closer, “you only think it’s not fair ‘cause you don’t know what _I_ know.”

The dirt is still empty and Jimmy looks back. “What?”

“I know that little boys have magnetic ears,” Grandpa says. He reaches to the side of Jimmy’s head and there’s a brush of the soft crinkly skin and the spotted arm passes right near Jimmy, and then the arm and the hand are moving back and the coin is lying in the middle of the hand again. 

The dragon flexes around its shining treasure.

And Jimmy takes the coin this time. He mutters a thank you and puts it down beside a pink petal and tries to decide if the little blue car can drive on the round coin and he thinks that it probably can. 

* * *

_Question 4. When workers do not find their assignments challenging, they become bored and so achieve less than their abilities would allow. On the other hand, when workers find their assignments too difficult, they give up and so again achieve less than what they are capable of achieving. It is, therefore, clear that no worker’s full potential will ever be realized._

_Which one of the following is an error of reasoning contained in the argument?_

* * *

The lights flick on above him, bright and burning. 

“Sorry, Jimmy,” Pop says, stepping into his bedroom. “These new bulbs, hey?” And for a moment Pop squints at the bulb in the ceiling as if he can figure out a way to make it less bright right now. As if he can fix it tonight. Then he looks back to Jimmy. “Want ‘em on, or off?”

Jimmy shrugs, and his dad leaves them on. He lowers the National Geographic and leans back on his pillows, waiting. A lamp burns on the nightstand beside him, orange in the pale blue sun of the winter evening. 

Pop doesn’t leave. He looks at the line of old matchbox cars along the top of the dresser and hums beneath his breath, then props his hip against the wall and tilts his head at Jimmy. “What’re you reading about today?” 

Jimmy holds up the magazine. There’s a teenager on the cover with rugged blond hair and a determined expression. “He sailed all around the world by himself.”

His dad nods slowly, taking it in. “Did he?” A rush of breath: “ _Wow_.” Then Pop scratches his face. “Would _you_ like to do that?”

Jimmy shrugs. “Well, I don’t have a boat.”

His pop chuckles. “No, that’s true.” Pop frowns like he’s considering it further. “And even if you set off from Lake Michigan, I don’t suppose you could get very far, hey?”

Jimmy flicks over another page. There’s a picture of the blond teenager climbing the rigging. _Running wing and wing on a fair breeze, Robin sets his mainsail to starboard; a whisker pole steadies the striped genoa jib to port._ They’re good words even if Jimmy doesn’t know what they mean. He thinks about reading them out to his dad. 

But then Pop clears his throat. “I used to go sailing on the lake with your grandpop, you know.” 

Jimmy’s never seen his dad’s dad except in old photos and the pictures he thinks of when he hears the stories. He adds a wrinkled blue fisherman hat to his imagined version of the old man, like in a movie. He thinks about adding a parrot. 

“Yeah,” Pop says softly. He smiles. “We never caught any fish. Pa always said back home in Cork the fish’d be swarming around his line as soon as he got on the water. But after all those years in the Western Electric factory…Pa reckoned he could just dip a finger in the water and zap all the fish stone dead if he wanted to, and he said the fish could sense it.” A shrug of fabric. “So they never even came near.”

Jimmy nods, and the bed dips by his feet as his dad comes over and sits on the edge of it. 

Pop looks back down from the bright light again and rubs his eyes. “Why’d I keep looking at that?” he says, chuckling, and he rubs a hand over his leg. Brushes something invisible off of Jimmy’s bedspread. “You know, there’s a famous story about that big factory where your grandpop worked. A scientist came to visit there when I was just a baby, when Pa was still working.”

Jimmy closes the magazine now. The blond teenager glares at him from the front, out on the ocean somewhere. 

“The scientist ran a bunch of tests on the workers—nothing bad,” Pop says, holding up a placating hand, as if he’s worried Jimmy’s already imagining something even worse than all the pictures of lions tearing up weaker animals in the magazine on the bed. “Nothing bad. He wanted to find out if people worked better in brighter light or in dimmer light. So he came and he turned up the lights in the factory.”

And Jimmy tilts his head now. He feels the glow of the ceiling bulb.

“And my pa and everyone else _did_ work better,” his dad says. 

Jimmy nods. “Because they could see better?”

“Well, maybe,” Pop says, and he pats Jimmy’s foot again. “That’s a good thought, Jimmy. But the funny thing was, when the scientist came back the next week, he turned all the lights down low again.” He studies Jimmy, glasses glinting in black frames. “And Pa and everyone didn’t work worse, they worked even better.” 

Jimmy looks to his bedspread. It’s checkered in blue and grey. 

“Doesn’t seem right, does it?” Pop says. “I guess that’s the point of the story.” He shrugs, the fabric of his shoulders rustling again, his tired old green shirt. Presses a hand to his mouth and then lowers it. “Or maybe the point of the story is that people just like when someone shows an interest in them.” He pats Jimmy’s socked foot one last time and then stands, the bed falling and rising with his movement. “Dinner’s almost up, okay?” 

“Okay,” Jimmy says, still frowning. 

There’s a moment of quiet, and then: “Come down and help your mom,” Pop says, and he jerks his head to the door. “Tell her about the sailing boy. I bet she would’ve loved to do that, your mom.” 

And Jimmy rolls off his bed, socks landing with a thud on the carpet. He kills the lamp, then turns off the burning overhead light, too, so the room is blue and dim again. 

* * *

_Question 5. Because the statement “all pink rabbits are rabbits” is true, it follows by analogy that the statement “all suspected criminals are criminals” is also true._

_The reasoning above is flawed because it fails to recognize that…_

* * *

His brother’s words hang in the twisting smoke of the bar. Jimmy flicks his fingernail against the neck of his bottle, a high pitch plink, and then taps it downwards. A scale descending. He has another sip. The Old Style is bitter and light and then finally sweet on his tongue. 

One more slip up—but Chuck’s been saying that for years. One more, one more, one more, like throwing back drinks. 

The bar stool digs into Jimmy’s thighs as he sits there, the soles of his sneakers pressed tightly to the crossbar to keep himself from sliding further. He drags his beer bottle by the neck through the wet, chain-linked rings on the scratched wooden surface. Lifts the bottle and drains it and then sets it down again. 

One more slip up. 

Chuck, who had come to the police station this morning, who was in town, perfect timing as always—though really, if he wasn’t in town, Jimmy wouldn’t have gone out again last night, wouldn’t have gone looking for something to do on Cermak at three in the morning, which was dumb in the first place because he knows the cops are just a block down from the factory corner there. But that’s where the all-night bars are, filled to the corners with tired workers and bright lights and bartenders who never give a shit about fake IDs—unless, apparently, when the cops are all drinking there that night, too. 

Marco’s across the room. He never looks directly at Jimmy, and Jimmy never looks directly at him. But Jimmy can follow the train of the distant conversation by Marco’s movements, by the shrugging shoulders and the flash of a gold coin. 

He can tell from a tilt of Marco’s head that his friend is waiting for him to come and play his role. He looks away. People behind him are throwing darts. They whip through the air. 

One more, one more, one more, Jimmy thinks, the thoughts landing with each new dart. 

He waves for another drink. Merna’s never cared and the cops never care about this place either, and he tips it back. The first cold spark of beer hits his tongue and then travels down his throat as he finishes the rest of it, waiting. Like something knocking on a door, he feels the warmth at the back of his mind, tapping to be let in. 

He waves for another. Tonight, he feels like Paul Newman in that old movie, drinking and drinking and waiting for the click—

Then he’s part of the bar again. Everyone snaps up like elastic bands around him, like they’ve appeared out of nowhere. Ghosts. And he’s Jack Nicholson in _The Shining_ , turning now to face the room, as suddenly the hotel fills with party goers and guests in a rush of noise and activity and the whistling of darts through the air, flick flack, thud. 

Jimmy snaps on a smile. He pulls a handful of darts out of the dartboard, spinning back to face the darts players. He swaggers over, holding them crushed in his palm. 

“Hey man, what’re you—” 

“Lemme go, lemme have a go,” Jimmy murmurs. He licks his lips and eyes up a shot. Shakes his hair back from his face and tries to hold his hand steady. 

He can’t throw darts, he’s about as good at darts as he is at pool, but the point isn’t to win here, or to hustle, the point is to make this guy feel bad for him. He sways on his feet. 

The point is to make this guy trust him, trust him enough so that in three hours, at four in the morning, when Jimmy and Marco run a pigeon drop in a back alley somewhere, beside a brick wall stinking of piss and beer and surrounded by broken glass, the guy won’t question anything. 

And then Jimmy won’t be Jimmy anymore, he’ll be a knife blade cutting through pockets, a knife blade cutting through a knotted rope, gone again before the guy even realizes that this was never fair to begin with. 

* * *

_Question 6. The National Association of Fire Fighters says that 45 percent of homes now have smoke detectors, whereas only 30 percent of homes had them 10 years ago. This makes early detection of house fires no more likely, however, because over half of the domestic smoke detectors are either without batteries or else inoperative for some other reason._

_In order for the conclusion above to be properly drawn, which one of the following assumptions would have to be made?_

* * *

At least it’s warm. 

He stands out in the night in his short sleeves, in an old pair of jeans, quickly tugged on over his boxers. They have holes in the knees. He hadn’t even realized he brought them here with him. Other guests are hovering on the forecourt nearby, too, in robes or pajamas. A siren wails. 

“Someone must’ve been smoking right by the censor,” the woman beside Jimmy says for the fifth time since they got outside. She blows hair out of her face. “Yeah, right by the censor. Asshole.”

“Mmm,” he says, pressing his fist against his mouth, stifling a yawn. “Guess so, huh?” 

The firemen are gathered around the Ramada Hotel, chatting idly. One of them is still inside talking to the manager. The alarm finally shuts off, and the ringing of it hangs in the air for a few moments afterwards, like smoke. 

Jimmy runs a hand through his too-short hair. He keeps forgetting about it until he touches it. It feels empty, and makes the rest of his head feel empty, too, until he can forget again. 

A plane goes by overhead, red lights flashing on the wings, descending to the nearby airport. It passes in front of the yellow-stained clouds, loose and fluffy things that slowly dissolve into the air. 

“So, business or pleasure?” the woman says, and it takes Jimmy a moment to realize she hasn’t just made the same comment about the fire alarm censor again. 

He turns. “Huh?”

“You in Albuquerque for business or pleasure?” she says, tightening her arms around her chest like she’s somehow cold out here. “You know, like they ask in the airport?”

“Right,” he says, looking up at the glowing sign of the hotel. It throws off a red light. “Uh, business.”

The lady sniffs. “Oh yeah? Where do you work?”

He shrugs his shoulders. Thinks about how he should answer, then says, “Law firm.”

“Lawyer, eh?” the lady says. She laughs sharply, machine-gun-like. “Maybe you can sue these guys over a disturbed night’s sleep, huh? That’d be rich.” 

He chuckles, too. “Yeah, maybe,” he says, and stills. Softer: “Maybe.”

If Marco were here, standing with the others in the warm forecourt beneath the yellow-stained night, Jimmy would give the signal. He’d tap his thumb on the edge of his pocket, he’d flag this lady, who hears _law firm_ and assumes _lawyer_ of a guy in hole-filled jeans waiting outside a Ramada Hotel, aas a ready mark. 

* * *

_Question 7. Switching to “low-yield” cigarettes, those that yield less nicotine, tar, and carbon monoxide than regular cigarettes when tested on a standard machine, does not, in general, reduce the incidence of heart attack. This result is surprising, since nicotine and carbon monoxide have been implicated as contributing to heart disease._

_Which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy?_

* * *

The smoke tastes bitter and burned on his lips, and then she pulls back, looking down at him as he floats at the edge of the pool. Her eyes glitter in the early spring sun, and it’s like she’s seeing something he isn’t seeing, something other than the green pool at the Beachcomber Apartments. 

“C’mon, Kim,” he says, treading water slowly, hands on the tiles either side of her knees. 

She’s sitting at the edge of the deep end. She just smiles. 

He reaches for the beer beside her and drinks, then pops his lips off the end. “Come on, I led you all this way to the water.”

She chuckles. “I think you might’ve misunderstood that saying,” she adds, lightly, taking the beer from him. She has a sip and then sets it back beside her. 

“Don’t think so,” Jimmy says, wet hands squeaking on the tiles as he keeps himself afloat. “So come on…” 

“I have to finish reading this, Jimmy,” Kim says, talking about the thick textbook that’s sitting next to her hip, waiting for her. She doesn’t actually look at it. Instead, she tips her head back and lifts her cigarette to her lips. 

He smiles. He watches as she exhales plumes of glimmering smoke. His hands grip the cold tiles. As she stares off, silent, he lets himself sink down beneath the surface of the water, first chin then nose then eyes dropping into the pool. 

He looks up at her through the tangled threads of gold light that twist in the green. The water sounds low and deep in his ears, and he crosses his ankles over each other and floats, just above the bottom, his hands whirling slowly to keep his balance. The threads sparkle. 

Orange light glints above as she has another smoke. 

Then he finally breaks the surface again and he gasps. Grips his fingertips to the edge of the pool and floats before her. The Shiner Bock still lingers in his mouth, hoppy and bitter above the tang of the chlorine. 

And he bats the back of his hand against Kim’s knee. “Come on,” he says. “The book can’t get to you in the middle of the pool, Kim. It’ll never know.” 

“Oh, it’ll _know,_ ” Kim says dramatically, widening her eyes. 

“Come out into the middle with me,” he says, swimming away and then drifting back, like he can trick her into following. “This’ll be a moat. No more law school out there in the middle, no more third year…” 

“Hmm,” she says lightly, “I think that’s stretching the definition of the word _moat_.”

And he shakes his head, doglike, whacking damp hair against his temples and sending droplets of water over everything. 

“Hey!” Kim says, kicking a foot through the water and jostling him in the ribs. 

Jimmy grabs her leg. He holds onto her, not pulling. Treading water. “It is so a moat. What does a moat have that this pool doesn’t have?”

“A castle.”

He squeezes her leg. “When we’re in the middle we’ll be the castle.”

“Alligators.”

Another squeeze. “We’ll be the alligators, too.”

And Kim lifts her cigarette to her lips for another drag. She nods slowly, lungs full, then exhales. Snubs out the cigarette on the old tiles, and she leans down, but instead of sliding into the pool she just kisses him again, the taste of tobacco on her lips. 

Her hands come down to hold his head, fingertips pressing around his ears. He clings onto her leg, his feet turning below, turning and turning to stay afloat. The sun is hot on his back and he can feel his skin tightening, feel the drips of water drying there. His hairs over his body stand on end. 

Then Kim pulls back, smiling down at him again, that same look on her face again, like she’s seeing something he’s not seeing. She strokes her thumb over his cheek. “What about the electric eels?”

“We can be those,” Jimmy murmurs, finally letting go of her leg. “Easy.” He wedges his hands either side of her knees, wet fingers squeaking on the tiles. “D’you know, my grandpop made telephone wires?”

“Did he now?” Kim says softly, and then she leans down.

His body tingles, waves of electricity running beneath his skin and out into the water. His skin tightens again as the sun burns, and the air smells of chlorine and Kim’s cigarettes. He wishes he could rise up out of the pool, out of the moat and onto the shining shore; or maybe drag Kim in here with him, down and down into the electrified water. 

* * *

_Question 8. Slash-and-burn agriculture involves burning several acres of forest, leaving vegetable ash that provides ample fertilizer for three or four years of bountiful crops. On the cleared land nutrients leach out of the soil, however, and the land becomes too poor to support agriculture. New land is then cleared by burning and the process starts again. Since most farming in the tropics uses this method, forests in this regionally will eventually be permanently irradiated._

_The argument depends on the assumption that…_

* * *

“The honorable—” he presses his lips to her clavicle “—the _honorable_ Kimberly Wexler.”

“Not a judge,” she says, pulling him back up to her mouth, fingers twisted in his hair. “Not even a lawyer yet.”

“Mmf—” Jimmy gets out before she’s kissing him again. He wedges his knee between hers on the sofa, trying to keep his balance as she runs her hands up his back in sharp points of pressure. 

Tonight, his secret burns warm and exciting in his chest, burns so bright he worries if he opens his mouth too wide she’ll be able to see the light of it in there. 

He pulls back. His fingers tangle in the red and black of her graduation gown. He tugs the zipper down her chest further, teeth buzzing. “You’ll be a lawyer soon, though,” he murmurs, fiddling with the buttons “Be up there, fighting for the law.” 

“Fighting for what’s _right_.”

“—fighting for what’s _right_ ,” he says, pushing the gown and her blouse apart. 

She stills, breathing heavily, eyes on his hands. He rubs his thumbs beneath her bra. Her chest moves under his skin. 

“Up there, fighting the good fight…” he says softly, and again his secret flares like oil thrown on a fire, and he adds, “Fighting the other side.” 

“Oh yeah?” she murmurs, gaze following the curve of his thumbs along her skin. 

Jimmy nods, tracing little patterns now, little letters, maybe. “Mmm, Clarence Darrow,” he says, thumbs curling up and over her breasts again. “A _sexy_ Clarence Darrow—” 

Kim’s chest shakes. “Clarence Darrow was already plenty sexy.”

He scoffs, grinning, and Kim’s chest vibrates even more. “So regular, hot Clarence Darrow,” he says, kissing the trembling part of her chest, and then he lifts up again. “Or, hey, it’s like Hepburn and Tracy fighting each other in court, and you’re regular, hot Katharine Hepburn.” He can see the spark in Kim’s eyes as she’s about to laugh more with him, but he’s going somewhere else with it, and he shifts on the sofa, straddling her legs now, and softer: “And I’m Spencer Tracy…” 

She tilts her head. “Spencer Tracy?”

He nods, leaning down to kiss her collarbone again, and her hand’s in his hair and then she’s pulling him back. 

Her eyes soften as she looks up at him. 

“No?” He gives an exaggerated frown. “Can I be sexy Clarence Darrow, then?” 

She makes a little face. Runs her thumb over his cheekbone. “Or you could just be you.”

Another flash in his chest, the light brightens even more. “Yeah, okay,” he says, and he runs his palms over her skin, and he can feel his mouth hanging open. 

She tugs on his jeans, pulling him up, and he grinds against her. 

“So you’re you—” he kisses her throat then moves back “—and I’m me, and you need to convince me to drop the case—”

Kim cuts him off with another kiss, holding him close for a moment, then she gasps a breath and shakes her head. “Mm—won’t need to do that.”

He chuckles against her lips. “Yeah, ‘course not. Never need to do that.”

There’s a loud explosion on the television and he remembers that it’s going. Some damn movie. He doesn’t care about it, because now Kim’s trailing her fingers up his neck and into the dip of his jaw, and she keeps her hands so light, almost not there at all. Like she can hold him in place with those ten ghosted hints of pressure—and she can. 

He makes a soft sound into her mouth and tries to keep his head still, tries not to break the ghosts of pressure. 

Then she pulls her lips away, anyway. “But after the case, I see you,” she says, still right there, “because I’ve been looking at you the whole time, anyway…without you noticing—”

And he kisses her again, grunting against her lips, and her hands finally tighten on his face. Her fingers press into him for a moment and then push him back, making space again. 

“So when I see you in the halls…” she says, her breath tingling, warm on his lips, “I know I can’t let you leave the courthouse without pulling you into the empty chambers, without locking the door…” 

“God,” Jimmy says, leaning down again and catching Kim’s gasp with his mouth. He fights with the zipper on the gown, then the rest of the buttons on her blouse. “Get this—damn—” he grunts, and Kim’s hands join him, flashes of white in the dark space between them, in the pool of blue light that’s spilling over the sofa like a spotlight. Just their fingers twisting together and the glow of their bodies in the sea of darkness. 

And he wants to say, Me too, Kim, I’m here now, too, I’m right behind you. I’m coming with you now, too.

* * *

_Question 9. No one knows what purposes, if any, dreams serve, although there are a number of hypotheses. According to one hypothesis, dreams are produced when the brain is erasing “parasitic connections” (meaningless, accidental associations between ideas), which accumulate during the day and which would otherwise clog up our memories…_

_The parasitic-connection hypothesis, if true, most strongly supports which one of the following?_

* * *

But he doesn’t dream about them fighting. He dreams about them standing on the same side. 

He dreams about what he’ll have to do to make that true. 

* * *

The clouds outside the examination center are tea-stained with red, dark with the promise of rain. Above the campus, the sun shines through a gap of blue. 

Jimmy rubs the heel of his palm against his neck. His whole back is stiff from bending over the LSAT for the last three and a half hours, from squinting at the bright white papers in the mint-walled room. 

He told himself he would try to remember some of the questions this time, remember them well enough to tell Kim tonight. But, as he steps out into the light they slide out of his head, like his brain emptying, and he’s just left with the humming feeling of trying to move through it as fast as he can, of trying to keep pace. Of trying to remember all of Kim’s advice and hear her voice in his head. Trying to hold on, and hold on, and hold on. 

But there she is, anyway, leaning against one of the newly-blue railings along the tree-lined path. She stands upright when she sees him, taking a step closer. Her hair is free and she’s in jeans, pink t-shirt tucked in. 

“Hey there,” he says. 

“Hey there.” She smiles carefully, a small thing on her face. 

He returns the smile. Shrugs his shoulders. 

And she twirls her keys around in her hand with a jangle of metal, then jerks her head. “Going my way?”

Jimmy grins. He looks back to the room then looks to her and lets the grin grow and grow. “Yeah,” he says, “Yeah, I reckon I am.”


	13. Two Phone Calls

The phone rings against Jimmy’s ear, the line warm and crackling. Golden sun cuts into the shade of his front step from low above the opposite apartments. A curling cable winds from the handset to the cradle on the floor just inside, and a wire snakes from the cradle back to the wall in his bedroom. It’s just long enough to reach. 

Jimmy sips his beer, ice-cold and bubbly on his tongue. He rubs his thumb over the Shiner Bock label as the phone line continues to ring, as the sound of the evening news from someone’s open window drifts in and out of audibility. 

Another sip, then the phone clicks, and he swallows fast, grinning. “Hey, Mom!” he says. “Happy Birthday!”

She chuckles. “Hey yourself, honey.”

Jimmy sets his beer back down next to his foot on the lower step. “How’s the big seven-five?”

Another quiet laugh. “Still waiting to learn the secrets of the universe.”

“Ah, well,” Jimmy says. “Give it time.” He moves sideways along the step, catching more of the angular sun. He rolls his neck as the warmth hits. “Good day?”

“Hmm, so-so,” she says wryly, and then after a moment: “It was very nice. I had lunch at the Pearl with Lily and the girls.”

He smiles. “Cobb salad, hold the eggs?” 

Another chuckle. “Well, of course.”

A black jeep pulls into the parking lot, its engine a low rumble. One of Jimmy’s neighbors gets out. He’s an older guy, always around a lot, and he helps his little boy down out of the passenger seat. He lifts a hand to Jimmy as they pass. Jimmy nods back.

“It hasn’t stopped raining this week,” Ruth says, and she sighs. “Good for the garden, I guess. Delilah’s been sleeping under the back porch and coming back in covered in dirt.” 

Jimmy smiles. He curls the phone cord around his hand. “You talk to Chuck yet today?”

A hum of agreement. “He called this morning,” she adds, then she gives another sigh. “Those partners leave too much on his plate.” And now he can almost hear her shaking her head. “I told him to take a weekend off before it kills him.”

Jimmy tries to remember if he’s seen his brother recently—nothing comes to mind, but HHM has been buzzing recently, associates flitting in and out of the mailroom with each turn of the minute hand, each job more important than the next. 

“And how have you been?” Ruth says softly. 

Jimmy nods. “Good, yeah, really good.” He grins, stretching back on the steps, feeling his bones click and muscles relax. The sky is blue turning to gold. “No rain here.” 

Ruth sighs. “Enjoy the sunshine for me.”

“I will,” he murmurs. He has another sip of beer. The trees along one edge of the parking lot are coming back into their leaves; they cast long evening shadows over the cement, rippling. 

His mother’s said something. 

“Hm?” 

“Anyone you’ve been enjoying it with?” she says, and then she adds: “The sunshine.”

He chuckles. “No, not right now.”

She lets out a mock little gasp. “Not like you,” she says. “What happened to, what was her name, prettier-than-Kim-Novak?”

Jimmy laughs brightly. “We’re just friends, Mom.” He lowers the bottle to the concrete step again, then scratches his knee, waiting for his mother to fill the silence again. When she doesn’t, he sighs. “We kinda messed that one up, actually.”

There’s a pause. “She didn’t—”

“Mom,” he says quickly. “It was just timing.” And in explaining to his mother, in trying not to sound like a kid, he surprises himself at how easy the words come. “We tried, but we were both really busy, you know?”

And Ruth says mildly, “They’re working you that hard in the mailroom?”

Jimmy chuckles. “She’s a proper lawyer now, Mom. She’s up there with the big kids—hell, better than them, even. I think she probably beat Chuck on the bar exam, you know.” 

She laughs warmly. “You almost sounds like _you’re_ the one who did.”

He grins. “Well, I helped. A little.” And then a deep-throated laugh. “Okay, maybe she just let me feel like I was helping, I don’t know.” He shifts, adjusting his grip on the phone. “Anyway, she’s not in the mailroom anymore.”

There’s thoughtful noise from his mother, a little musical hum. She says, “But you’re still doing all right there?” 

“Well, yeah,” Jimmy says, and then he smiles again. “It’s good, I’m doing good, Mom.” 

“Okay, good.”

The sun flickers over the opposite roofs. The soft glow along the lower edge of the sky is spreading upward now, a swell of yellow that’s growing and growing in that wide Albuquerque way. He says, “I’ll come up and see you again sometime, okay? We can celebrate your big seven-five properly. No Cobb salad.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah, we can do way better than that,” he says. He uses the neck of the beer bottle to roll it slowly around on its base, like a coin settling. “I’ve just been…well, I’ve been busy.”

There’s a silence, then a rustle of fabric. “It’s good to be busy.”

He thinks of his completed LSAT papers somewhere out there in the city, waiting to be graded. He thinks of his law school applications, dozens of them, letters that Kim helped him send out months ago, each stuffed with a personal essay and his transcript and a doe-eyed note telling the admissions officer that he’s re-sitting the LSAT in February, telling them to wait for his updated score. 

All those letters out there, somewhere, waiting. 

And in the crackling silence of the phone and the warm evening sun, Jimmy thinks it sounds like good odds. 

He finishes his beer and sets down the empty bottle. He runs his fingers over his mouth. “So, I’ll be seeing you soon, okay?”

His mother’s voice is soft in his ear: “Course, hon.”

He smiles again. They talk for a while longer, just easy going things, Saturday afternoon things that float down the thousand miles between them as the sun finally dips beneath the rooftops, and the sky turns indigo and gold. 

* * *

“What’s the holdup?” 

Jimmy slows. He breathes out once, deliberately, then stands up from where he’s bent over the copier, a hand pressed into the small of his back. He feels like he’s twice his age today, some creaking structure of bones and wood. It’s mid-afternoon, and he hasn’t had a break. There’s a biblical collection of associates and assistants waiting around him—John and Matthew and Trina and now, bald head and upper lip coated in a thin sheen of sweat, here’s Carl Vernon, the cherry on top. 

Vernon raises his eyebrows and narrows his lips.

“This is broken,” Jimmy says coolly. “You’ll have to get in the line.”

“Line?” Vernon says. He doesn’t follow it up with anything, just stands there with his eyebrows crawling further and further up toward his scalp. 

Jimmy breathes out and shakes his head. He goes back to struggling with the machine, the one that’s crapped out again already even though the technician came by yesterday afternoon and said he’d fixed it. Jimmy can feel sweat prickling on the back of his neck—it’s hotter in the mailroom than usual, all the extra bodies and machines working overtime. The place feels closer than ever to the kind of mailroom he’d first imagined on the plane to Albuquerque: more of an engine room, a dark and frantic basement. He flicks a panel closed on the copier and presses a button. It does nothing. 

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Vernon says. When Jimmy looks up, he’s already walking away, brushing past another associate who’s just arrived, swinging off through the stairwell door. 

Jimmy chuckles and swipes his hair back from his forehead, then he looks to the others. “What is going _on_ today?” 

Matthew, a mild-mannered assistant in small rectangular glasses, gives a bony-shouldered shrug. He says, “Perfect storm?”

“Hurricane Hamlin,” Trina offers.

Jimmy unconsciously wipes his hands over the front of his slacks and then looks down to see streaks of ink over the fabric, like a child’s finger-painting. He huffs, shaking his head, but he glances back to Trina. “Hamlin?”

“Senior,” Matthew says. “Keeps bringing in new cases linked to that Bosco fiasco, and we don’t have enough people here to keep up.”

Jimmy tries to wedge his fingernail under a stubborn switch inside the copier and bites his lip. It won’t budge. “You’re telling me,” he mutters.

After a minute, and some unknowable change that had nothing to do with Jimmy, the copier whirs to life again, spitting out paper in a mocking sort of hello. He exhales and gets back to it, feeding documents again and again into the machine. 

The line of people doesn’t let up until early evening. Jimmy feels like he’s trying to stop a sinking ship, bailing out sheet after sheet of white paper into the hands of waiting associates, only for more to emerge from each copier. It feels like he hasn’t made any headway at all, until eventually, almost all at once, the dam breaks. 

He looks around and the room is almost empty, just Burt losing his temper at one of the computer workstations, and Ernie printing page upon page of something else.

So, as Jimmy finally gets time to sort through the afternoon deliveries, the sun’s already gone from the high windows of the basement and the sky is already darkening. He rifles through the parcels on autopilot, dividing them into their plastic bins with echoing thuds, and then he moves on to the letters. 

His letter is the third one in the pile. 

It’s achingly familiar from last time, the LSAC logo in the top corner, and his own name glinting up through the plastic window: _Mr. James M. McGill._

He stills. Breathes out slowly, channeling the air through pursed lips. Okay. He presses his forefinger to his mouth, steadying his hand, and then looks out into the mailroom. Ernie passes with a cartful of binders and stuffed-to-bursting Manila folders. 

Jimmy jogs over. “Hey, Ernie!” he says, and he lays a hand on the cart. “Hey. You going up to two?”

Ernie blinks, like Jimmy’s jolted him back to reality from somewhere. It takes a moment before he nods and says, “Yeah—up to two, yeah.” 

Jimmy keeps his hand on the cart. “I got it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, man,” Jimmy says, nodding quickly. 

“Uh, thanks, Jimmy,” Ernie says, smiling and letting go of the cart. 

Jimmy just nods again. He wheels the squeaking cart over to the bank of elevators and thumbs the call button and hovers there on the balls of his feet. He can feel the letter from the LSAC in his back pocket like a brand, spurring him to move, move. 

The elevator ride up to the second floor of HHM feels even slower than usual, like time is winding down. He can hear his heart in his chest, beating and beating as if it’s one of the mechanisms turning somewhere above the elevator, thudding quickly over and over as they wind higher. 

When the doors finally open, he shoots out so fast he almost knocks over Clara with his mailcart. She calls his name, and he just throws out a harried apology, weaving around the gathered assistants along the second floor halls as he passes a breakroom and the door to the bathrooms.

But her cubicle is empty. 

He parks the mailcart next to her desk and exhales, catching his breath. Peers over into the neighboring space, and says, “Hey Jack—uh, no Kim?”

Jack, blond and straight-backed in a well-cut suit, doesn’t look up from his blue-screened computer. He just shakes his head.

Jimmy studies Kim’s desktop calendar. There’s a note on today’s square, March 12th, but he doesn’t know what _L+D_ means. He peers back over at Jack. “D’you know where she is?”

With a sharp exhales through his nose, Jack finally turns around. “Just leave whatever it is in her tray, Jimmy, she’ll get it.”

Jimmy glances at the clock—it’s coming up on five o’clock. “So you don’t know where Kim is?”

Another sigh from Jack. “Hamlin sent her to Reeves and Green to pick up the deposition files those guys were supposed to courier over yesterday.”

“Reeves and Green?” Jimmy repeats. He taps his hand on the mailcart. “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

Jack shrugs again. “Depends how friendly they’re feeling today, I guess.”

Jimmy looks to the darkening windows. “Are they across town?”

“Who are you, UPS?” Jack says, and he turns back to his computer again. “Just leave it in her tray, Jimmy, I’ll make sure she gets it.” He types a few letters with his forefingers on the black keyboard, then he reaches for a sheet of paper from a nearby neat pile. He holds it out to Jimmy without looking around, and says, “Can you bring me ten of these? I need them by five thirty.”

Jimmy huffs. He leans over the cubicle wall to snag the paper from Jack’s hand. “No problem,” he mutters, “thanks so much for all your help.” He stuffs the sheet into the side of the mailcart then wheels the cart off again, tossing heavy Manila folders and stacks of printing into people’s in-trays without exchanging more than a quick greeting for once—not that anybody else looks ready to talk, either, as he overhears snatches of frantic telephone conversations, or passes associates sweating over towering stacks of paper. 

He doesn’t finish downstairs until after seven, waving off Henry and Burt and Ernie as he works his way through the final stack of photocopying for the day. 

Without them, the mailroom is finally, blissfully, quiet. Where earlier he’d been endlessly bailing water it’s now a steady trickle, just sheet after unhurried sheet emerging from the industrial machine as Jimmy watches over everything and tries not to think about the letter waiting in his pocket. 

He could just open it now. He could pull it out and open the letter and then he’d know. One way or the other, higher or lower, better than last time or worse. 

But of course he can’t. 

He goes up to the second floor again before he leaves. Her cubicle is still empty. Blond-haired Jack is gone now, too, and so are most of the other associates. There’s only a couple of people still bent over their desks, and the expanse of cubicles is a patchwork of light and darkness as some sections of the overheads are switched off for the day and others aren’t. 

So Jimmy rides the bus back to his place with the letter tucked into the front pocket of his backpack. It’s later than he usually leaves, and the bus is quieter than usual. The bus flashes past darkened streets and lit-up restaurants, past empty bus stop after empty bus stop. And, with the thinner traffic of night, Jimmy’s walking from his own stop to his apartment sooner than he expected, crossing his complex’s parking lot and climbing the couple of steps to his front door. 

He stands there in the cool evening, his keys in his hand. He can hear the splashing of someone in the complex’s pool, out of sight. The glow of the poolside lights spills onto a neighbor’s wall. 

He could call her, he thinks. He could just call her—go inside and pick up the phone, like he did last time, and read out his score and listen to the breath of her reaction. 

But he doesn’t call her. He walks back to the bus stop and crosses the street and waits until the night bus rumbles up. He rides it back past the flashing buildings and the bright restaurants, back past the empty bus stops and dark side streets. And, as he approaches her stop, he stands up early, keeping his balance in the aisle and gripping the pole beside the back exit—until the doors open with a hiss, and he bounds down, landing heavily on the sidewalk. 

He turns right into her street, and then left into her apartment complex. He climbs the yellow-lit steps up to the second level of her building, and walks around the balcony, passing the striped lights of neighboring windows, the chatter of people talking within—

—all as if he doesn’t remember _exactly_ when he was last here. 

He stops at her door. He could still go back home and call her. She wouldn’t know. He glances at the wall to the right of the front door. Looks away. 

And knocks on the door. 

The knock comes out weaker than he’d hoped, and he wishes he could try again, rap on the wood firmly with his knuckles. But he just lowers his hand. 

When the door swings open, it’s not Kim, it’s her roommate, Ellen—short and intense. Her eyebrows rise and she says, “You.”

“Me,” Jimmy says, and then, with a shit-eating smile, “Hi, Ellen.” 

Ellen gives an exaggerated sigh, but then she laughs softly. “Hi, Jimmy.”

Jimmy waits another moment, then clears his throat and adds, “Is Kim home?” 

“For once?” Ellen says, and then her face darkens. “Those bastard bosses always keep her there until midnight. Isn’t one of them your brother?”

“One of them, yeah,” Jimmy says, and he frowns. “She’s not here?”

A sigh. “No, she’s here.”

Jimmy tries to look past Ellen into the apartment. “So, can I come in, then?”

And Ellen just steps back, gesturing over to the living room where Kim has her head down over a stack of papers, yellow highlighter in her hand. She doesn’t seem to have noticed anything at all. 

He takes a few steps inside, into the kitchen area, and Ellen slinks off into her room. She closes her door with a loud snap. 

And the door slamming finally gets Kim’s attention. She looks up, gaze skimming over Jimmy to Ellen’s room, then her eyes cut back to him. She blinks. “Jimmy?”

“Hey,” he says, rooted there. 

“Hey,” she echoes, and she smiles. 

“Managed to get past your guard at the portcullis,” he says, jerking his head toward Ellen’s room.

Kim chuckles, looking at the door again, too. Then back to Jimmy. Her smile falls slowly, and her brows pinch together. “Jimmy, is everything okay?”

He slides his backpack off his shoulder and lowers it to the carpet. Bends down and unzips the front pocket, then pulls out the letter from the LSAC. Holds it out to Kim. “I hope so.”

She inhales, short and sharp. “Is that it?”

He just nods.

Kim nods back. “Okay,” she says. She folds in her lips then says, firmly, “Open it.” 

“Okay,” Jimmy echoes. He breathes out. “Okay.” He tears through the thin seal, the plastic window crackling as the envelope bends. He pulls out the letter. Unfolds it slowly, revealing the score page section by section, eyes skimming over everything as he looks for the only number that really matters. It feels just like last time, like a sea of black letters and digits. 

“Here,” Kim says softly, and she’s suddenly standing in front of him, reaching for the paper. 

He hands it to her.

Her brow pinches, her eyes narrowing as they scan the text, and, like earlier in the elevator, time seems to slow, the world fading at the edges—and then a smile breaks over Kim’s face. “Jimmy,” she says, still staring at the letter, grinning, and, her eyes still scanning: “Jimmy…I think this is really good.” 

Wings beat in his chest. “Yeah?”

She nods firmly, smile bright as her pupils dance over the letter. 

And he exhales shakily, a long-held breath. “Really good as in…good enough to actually get into law school really good?”

Kim finally looks at him. She doesn’t reply. She just stares up, her eyes full. The winged bird in his chest is circling. Lights shine in her eyes. 

Her gaze flickers down to his lips. 

And he almost steps forward. He shouldn’t have come here. The words are halfway to his mouth. Her lips tilt up in the beginnings of a smile, and he looks away. Looks to the empty kitchen, to the dark television, to the new artwork that’s been hung on the living room wall at some point over the last almost-year. He wonders if Kim bought it or Ellen. It’s a black and white photograph of the desert inside a white frame.

He swallows, and then looks back to Kim. 

Her face is softer, brows tilting down. She smiles. She touches her forehead, and Jimmy has a passing moment of confusion at the new gesture before she says, “You have some ink.”

Jimmy touches the same spot on himself. He can’t feel it there, of course he can’t. He lowers his hand and shakes his head. “Got it all over my pants today, too,” he says, indicating the finger-streaks of ink on the front of his slacks. 

“I noticed that,” she says wryly. 

He chuckles and looks back to the black-and-white desert photograph hanging in the living room. But he feels like he can sense the ink on him now, a pressure on his forehead like Kim’s actually touched him there. He lifts his fingertips to the spot again. 

“Little to the left,” Kim murmurs. 

He laughs again, pulling his gaze back from the painting. And he walks over to the bathroom, flicking on the light. The switch starts the shower fan, too, a low hum above.

Jimmy peers at himself in the circular mirror. There’s a swipe of black ink over his skin, about where he’d brush away his bangs. Now that he sees it there, he can almost remember doing it. He balls up some toilet paper and dampens it under the faucet then starts rubbing at the mark. The ink is as stubborn as the high-quality copier ink on skin ever is, and he exhales through his teeth. 

Kim’s reflection appears in the mirror beside him. 

He lowers the wad of paper and chuckles, turning to face the real her. “Caught the bus twice like this, you know.” At her tilted head, he shakes his head. “I went home after work first, but I couldn’t…”

Kim cuts him off with a nod. “I’m glad you came,” she says. She’s still holding his letter from the LSAC, and she must notice him looking at it because she holds it out to him. 

He shakes his head, waving her away. Goes back to scrubbing at the ink. 

“Here,” Kim says. She reaches past him to the bathroom cabinet and pulls out an opaque plastic bottle with a purple cap. 

He quirks an eyebrow.

“Make-up remover,” she says. “It’ll help.”

“Thanks,” he murmurs, taking it from her. He dabs some on the toilet paper. The ink comes away this time. As he cleans his skin, his eyes flick to Kim’s in the reflection. 

Hers are focused, solemn, with dark lines beneath them. Her words come suddenly, “Let’s go celebrate.”

He turns to her again. “Celebrate?”

She smiles again now, nodding. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

“Kim, I’m a mess,” Jimmy says, gesturing to his slacks again. “These look like an elephant’s painting at the zoo.”

She snorts, and her gaze darts to the mirror again. Then back to him. A smile flickers back onto her face. “Well, I need a drink, anyway,” she says mildly, and she’s walking out of the bathroom. Over her shoulder she adds, “You’re really not going to come with me?

Jimmy exhales, laughing. He checks his reflection one last time. The ink is just about gone, only a faint trace that you’d have to be really looking for to notice. Yellow-and-blue striped fish swim along the shower curtain behind him. 

He turns and follows her. 

* * *

The bar is dark, liquid smoke hanging in the dense air. There’s a television flickering in the corner, a football game that looks like it was first broadcast about twenty years ago. Metal-shaded bulbs hang on long wires from the already low ceiling, and they’re just bright enough to see the place by, just bright enough to light up Kim’s face when she turns to him. 

The two of them are sitting up at the bar, perched on too-tall stools, the wooden surface beneath Jimmy’s bare arm sticky with something. But he grins, tapping his fingernails on the wood. He looks out into the smoky-waved darkness. 

Kim’s already finished her first drink. She gestures to the bartender for another round of boilermakers, so he drains his, too, knowing as he does it that it’s going to hit him soon, that he’s finishing it way too fast. Kim’s a warped golden shape that comes into clarity as he lowers his glass again. 

Their drinks arrive. The shots drop into the beer in a whirl of golden lights. 

“Cheers,” Kim says, and she raises her glass to her lips then wipes her hand over her mouth, staring off into some middle distance somewhere. Her eyes are moving back and forth. Reading invisible text, some novel that she scans page by page. 

Their beer glasses slowly drain again, Jimmy keeping pace. Kim gestures again for another round, and he drinks, drinks until the air around him feels like it’s blurred with more than just the thick smoke.

Kim taps her glass with her nail like she’s ringing a bell, steady and rhythmic. When she looks to Jimmy, she smiles, but it falls every time she looks away again. 

A group of pool players cheer loudly just as Jimmy finally says, “You okay?”

Kim turns to him. “Hm?”

It’s quiet again now, but he tilts toward her anyway. “Are you okay?”

She laughs, eyebrows twisting in surprise. 

He props his chin on his hand, still leaning close to her on the bar. His bare elbow sticks to the wooden surface. His palm is surprisingly cold against his cheek.

Kim still doesn’t answer. After another moment, she turns her body toward him. She tips her own head, too, matching the angle of his. Her eyebrows stay twisted, and he’s staring at them trying to figure out if she’s really surprised by his question after all, or just curious, or maybe sympathetic, or tired— 

Then, at the same time, she says, “I’m okay—”

—and he says, “Rough day?” 

She gives a long sigh. Lowers her angled head to her hand so she can keep it tilted there, too, face to face with him above the bar. “It was a day.”

He makes a little face. 

She sighs. “Today, Jimmy, I got to be a glorified mailman.”

He hums at the back of his throat. “I heard.”

Her eyebrows lift.

“Mm,” he says softly, “Jack told me you had to go pick something up from some other law firm?” He adjusts his head on his hand again. 

“Surprised he gave you the time of day,” Kim mutters. “He’s usually so busy with all of Hamlin’s best assignments.” 

“Yeah, well, he wasn’t exactly…” Jimmy says, then he swallows and closes his eyes. 

Kim makes a soft noise. “Wasn’t exactly…?” 

“Shit, Kim, I totally forgot to copy that thing he gave me,” Jimmy says. He opens his eyes again. He gives a short chuckles. “He wanted ten copies by five-thirty.” 

Kim’s lips twitch. “I’m pretty sure he’ll live.’ And, under her breath: “Hitler-Youth-looking asshole…” 

Jimmy snickers, shaking against his hand. He already knows that the world is going to tip and spin when he shifts his head upright again, so he doesn’t move it at all, just keeps himself propped there, elbow on the bar, facing Kim. 

A grin crawls up her face again. “Jimmy,” she says, hushed. “You did it.” And the grin, somehow, keeps growing. “I always knew you could do it.”

He smiles back, “Always?” 

“Oh yeah,” she says solemnly, but she clearly can’t keep the smile from her lips for long. “You walked into the mailroom one day and I thought—wow, there’s a guy who could crush the LSAT.”

He laughs, chest filling with brightness. 

“And then the sunroof story was just the icing on the cake,” she says. 

Jimmy grins wide enough he feels it on his hand. “The _chocolate frosting_ on the cake, Kim.” 

“Jesus,” Kim says, turning her head. Her next words are half-muffled by her palm: “Why did you even _do_ that?”

He shrugs, chuckling softly. “Seemed like a good idea at the time,” he says. “Like, you’d definitely never drive that car again. Right?”

She snorts into her hand. “Probably not.”

“Exactly,” he says, pointing his free finger at her.

She swipes his finger aside, and he lets his hand be pushed away. She adjusts her head on her hand again, cheekbone on her palm. “You’re right, that makes total sense.”

“Mm, good,” Jimmy murmurs. 

“But you didn’t think about, I don’t know, starting smaller, maybe peeing in his pool—”

He shakes his head, jerky movements. “That’s basic stuff, Kim, _basic_ —” 

“Right, of course, I’m so sorry.”

He laughs, closing his eyes again briefly. “He totally did have a pool though. Dickhead.” In here with the dark backs of his eyelids, with the beer and whiskey spinning beneath his skin, and the stink of cigarettes and spilled liquor in his nostrils, he feels suddenly like he’s back there again, like he’s drunk in the afternoon, walking down Cermak, the white BMW swimming into his vision. 

“I mean it,” Kim says softly, from somewhere.

He opens his eyes. 

“I always knew you could do it.”

He grins, too. He nestles into his hand, and it’s warmed up now, matching the flush of his face. “You gotta be there when I get my first application back, okay?” he says, muffled. 

“Okay,” Kim says quietly. “Deal.”

And he murmurs, “Deal.” 

* * *

He always has Kim open the letters. 

They arrive, one by one, to the mailroom. Usually, he catches them first, a flicker of his name as he sorts through the stack, black words daggered into white paper. But he isn’t always the one to see them. If Henry or the others wonder about the letters coming in with _Mr. James M. McGill_ on the front, with the logos of colleges and universities emblazoned on the white envelopes, they don’t say anything. The letters find their way into his locker without comment. 

White rectangles on his dark backpack, waiting. 

He gets the news from her face instead of from the cold black ink. Kim’s the one who has to read the words themselves over and over, has to see the, _We’re sorry to…_ and the, _We regret to…_ beneath the ever-changing college letterheads. Jimmy just takes the letters back from her and stuffs them into his bag. At night, he’ll cross those schools off his list and drop the letters into his trash. 

Crumpled white balls among all his empty takeout boxes. 

Every time Kim opens another one, there’s an hour-long split-second before her face changes, before her brows draw together and eyes soften in sympathy. Then she’ll smile at him and shrug as if it doesn’t matter. “Well, that one was a longshot, we knew that…” she’ll say, or, “You didn’t want to go there anyway,” or some other platitude, until finally she says nothing at all, just looks at him with the same soft eyes, until Jimmy almost can’t bear to look back. 

And he thinks that he _wouldn’t_ look back, if only it weren’t for the other option, if only that didn’t mean having to read rejection after polite rejection himself. 

After the first few, Jimmy decides to save them up, to keep each week’s letters hidden in his bag until Friday. Then, on Friday, he’ll hunt for Kim, and every week she’ll set down her pen or her highlighter and they’ll find an empty breakroom, or a quiet cubicle, or the mailroom storeroom. Every week, it feels as if he’s setting up pool balls, waiting for the crack of the break. 

They all bounce hopelessly off the pockets with a single turn of Kim’s brow.

And, “That’s okay, they were so far away,” Kim will say, or, “We had a transfer student from there, she was horrible,” maybe, and then finally, nothing, just the soft eyes and disappointment. 

It feels like a hot air balloon spiraling to the ground, cooling and cooling, twisting down into the dirt.

* * *

“You didn’t do it without me, did you?” Kim says, her voice crackling warmly out of the phone against his ear. She’s spoken without waiting for him to say hello. 

Jimmy gives a small smile, and he looks to the stack of letters on his little kitchen table. There’s half a dozen of them. Six more letters. “Nah,” he says, “‘course I didn’t, Kim.”

“I just got back to the office,” Kim says, huffing. He can hear the creak of her desk chair. “Howard sent me down to the courthouse.” 

Jimmy nods. He stirs his spoon through his cereal then lowers it again. His yellow list of schools is curling nearby, and he looks away. He stares at the toasted oats softening in the milk instead. “Busy at court?”

Kim groans. “Yeah, madhouse, as ever,” she says, but her tone is almost fond. “Munsinger snapped at a bunch of potential jurors. Felt like the circus was in town.”

He chuckles. 

She makes a sound. “But as days go…at least I wasn’t a glorified mailman.” 

He smiles. “Out saving the world, then?”

“Mm, practically carrying babies out of burning buildings,” she says, soft in his ear.

“Hah,” Jimmy says. “Shame I missed that.” He swirls his spoon around again, and his eyes flicker to the six envelopes. They’re sliced with the blue evening light that’s sliding in through his blinds. “I think these’re the last of them, Kim,” he says. White rectangles on his dark table. “I double-checked the list.”

She’s silent, just the hiss of the line. 

It’s just gone five-thirty. He should turn on the lights soon. He rolls his head on his stiff neck, rubbing the knot in it with his fingertips. Six letters. Gambling on a dice. 

And Kim speaks again, finally. Her voice is light. “I’m ahead on my billable hours this week, you know. Just finishing up here. Maybe we could get dinner. Thai?”

Jimmy exhales through his nose. “I already have cereal.”

She snorts. “Wow, sad sack.” 

And he laughs, loud and bright. “Well, jeez, Kim,” he says warmly, “and here I was—” 

There’s a knock at the door. 

He sighs. “Hang on, delivery guy’s got the wrong apartment again.” He sets the handset down on the table and walks the few steps to the door. Slides the chain off and opens it, saying, “This is still 1B, man—oh.” 

It’s Chuck. He’s standing there, his face pinched in annoyance, his blue suit handing sharply on his shoulders. He has his cellphone in his hand.

“Uh, hey, Chuck,” Jimmy says. “What’s up?”

Chuck tries to look past Jimmy. “Do you have someone here?”

Jimmy turns back, too, as if he needs to check. He says, “No?”

Chuck frowns. “I heard laughter.” 

“Oh,” Jimmy says. He looks again at the phone in Chuck’s hand. At the Mercedes parked up nearby. Back to Chuck. “Uh—everything okay?”

And Chuck inhales, chest rising. “Listen, Jimmy, I really hate to spring this on you.” Then silence again, then another breath. “Someone needs to go up and be with Mom.”

The air leaves Jimmy’s lungs, and he says, “Mom?” 

Chuck shakes his head, holding up a flat palm. “She’s fine, the hospital just phoned. There was a complication this afternoon, and they suggested, quite strongly, that someone should stay with her overnight. And of course they can’t keep her themselves.” 

The hospital? Jimmy thinks. Complication?

“I’ve already phoned the airport. There’s a flight at seven forty. They’re holding a ticket at the desk for you.” He opens his billfold and hands Jimmy a wad of notes. “That should be more than enough to cover things.” 

Jimmy stands there, holding the money, mouth open. 

And Chuck frowns at him, then waves a hand. “Jimmy? Hello?”

He blinks. “Yeah, uh—seven thirty?”

“Forty, seven _forty_. Get a taxi to the house, the spare key is in the usual spot,” Chuck says. “And Mom’s left the keys to the Volvo in the kitchen drawer. Okay? Then she doesn’t have to sit in the back of a filthy cab on the way home.” He stares at Jimmy for another moment. Pulls a business card and HHM-branded black pen from his front pocket. He scribbles something on the back, then holds out the card. “There’s the flight number and hospital. Jimmy?” 

Jimmy clears his throat and takes the card with his free hand. His brother’s writing is neat and close, all looping cursive. 

“I really have to get back to the office,” Chuck says, and he frowns at Jimmy one last time. He opens his mouth, and his lips start to shape words, but then they still. And instead he says, “Call me tomorrow. You know my number.” 

Jimmy nods jerkily. As Chuck turns and walks on polished black shoes back to his polished black Mercedes, he wonders what his brother had been about to say first. Don’t fuck this up, maybe. Jimmy stands there with the cash in one hand and the business card in the other, hovering in the threshold as Chuck’s car pulls away, lights glowing. 

And then he finally shuts the door again. The handset is still lying on the table, there at the end of its curling cord. 

Jimmy lowers the cash and the card to the wood. They lie there, folded and creased. He lifts his phone up to his ear. The line crackles. He clears his throat again. “Uh—wasn’t the delivery guy. Something’s come up.” 

“Jimmy,” Kim says quietly. 

He extends a fingertip to the stack of law school letters. Six of them. Lying there between his bowl of soggy cereal and the folded bills from Chuck. 

Kim’s said something, he hasn’t heard it. 

“Huh?” he says. 

“Do you need a ride?” she repeats, and he can hear the sound of drawers opening and closing on her end of the line. “It’s on my way.”

“It’s not on your way,” Jimmy says, because it isn’t, none of it is, and he huffs out a sharp breath. “Kim, I can do things for myself.”

“I know that, dumbass,” she says. There’s the familiar click of her briefcase closing. And she delivers the lie again, like a verdict, and of course this time he believes it: “Jimmy, it’s on my way.” 

* * *

The old statue is still there in the Albuquerque International Sunport, the bronze man holding the tail of an eagle. The frozen figure hangs there, leaned forward, stuck in the moment right before falling—or maybe right before flying away. 

“He said she was okay, right?” Jimmy says, for the third time. He looks to Kim. “Did you hear him say she was okay?”

“It was hard for me to really hear him, Jimmy,” she says, again. Her eyes dart to his, soft blue. “I think so.”

He nods and looks back to the statue. 

Kim says, “What’s the flight number?” 

He can’t remember it. He tries to fish Chuck’s business card from his pocket, but it’s all just one tangled mess now, the card folded somewhere in with the cash. He just hands it all over to Kim and tries to forget about it. 

“I’ll go get your ticket,” she murmurs, and then she’s gone. 

People pass behind the bronze statue. The lights of the departures board flicker with their passing bodies. Jimmy wishes he could call his mother. Maybe he could ring her hospital before the flight. But he can’t remember the name of the hospital, and Kim has the card. 

Hospital, he thinks, she’s in the hospital. 

Chuck said she was okay, right? It’s just his own voice inside his head now, no one beside him to ask. 

Hospital, he thinks again, she’s in the hospital. 

Then he hears his name. It’s Kim, beckoning to him from the ticket counter, so Jimmy leaves the bronze man to his flight, or to his precarious fall, and walks over to join her. The airport is loud with chattering and with baggage carts and with squeaking carousel wheels, somewhere. 

The woman behind the counter smiles at him brightly, lipstick bright red, a patterned handkerchief twisted around her neck. “James?”

He nods. “Yeah, uh—James McGill.”

She smiles again, sincerely. “We have two spaces near the rear of the plane. Or a window and an aisle closer to the front, but those aren’t together.”

Kim flicks through the wad of cash and hands over about half of it, then says, “We’ll take the two at the back.”

Jimmy frowns at her. Two?

“Wonderful,” the clerk says, and she punches some buttons, the glow of her computer screen reflecting in her glasses. Two tickets print from a tiny grunting printer nearby, spitting out bit by bit until the clerk tears them off and hands them over to Kim. She gives Jimmy a strange, small nod. “My condolences.”

The last word only sinks in as they’re walking away. Jimmy stops, stomach suddenly heavy. “Condolences?” 

And Kim just smiles gently. “A little white lie,” she says, separating the tickets and then handing him one. “Here you go.” 

He takes it. Stares down at the paper. The airline logo curls colorfully along the top. He looks to Kim, holding the extra ticket, and frowns. “Is Chuck coming?” 

She just tilts her head, eyebrows twisting and mouth flickering in a confused smile. She stands there, holding the ticket. Her ticket. 

“Oh,” he says, looking back down at his. He feels like he’s following a rope blindfolded in the dark. He did that at summer camp once. Through a forest. It was night, and it smelled of wet earth as he slipped over roots and— 

“Is that okay?” Kim cuts into his thoughts.

He looks at her again. 

“I mean, it just kind of happened—”

He says, “Don’t you have work?”

Kim gives a small smile. “What, another Saturday down in the cornfield highlighting discovery?” And then she shakes her head shortly, lips pinched. “I don’t have work, Jimmy.” 

He nods. Looks back to his ticket again. _Gate A10. ABQ to ORD_. Looks back to Kim. “Didn’t you park in the short term lot?”

She shrugs. “I’ll pay the fine.”

He nods again. “Okay,” he murmurs. His heart beats. “I can pay you back.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” she says, so softly. She touches his elbow, a little point of warmth on his bare elbow. He’s still in his work button-up. His bag is at his feet, stuffed unevenly with clothes. He realizes he forgot his toothbrush. 

His law school letters are in there, too. Six tries, a dice roll. 

“Come on,” Kim says, her fingers vanishing from his skin. “C’mon, Jimmy, we need to get to the gate.”

When she turns, he follows her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! ♥️


	14. Berwyn, Illinois

“Jimmy?” 

He turns to her. It’s dark in the taxi. They’re pulling away from the pick-up bay at O’Hare already, the striped lights of the overhang flashing above. The cab’s engine is a low whir, like the whir of planes coming down to land on the edge of the desert, like the whir of half a dozen copiers assembled in a line along a basement wall. 

“Jimmy?” Kim’s flickering silhouette leans closer. “What’s the address?”

So Jimmy gives the name of his mother’s street. The cab driver’s head bobs as he swipes on the turn signal, and they follow the trickling cars onto the freeway. A cartoonish tree sways from the rearview mirror, filling the interior with the bright smell of pine. Some call-in relationship advice show is playing quietly on the radio, the host’s voice a smooth undercurrent—like the engine, another low whir. 

The moon is out. The glow of it is coldly fluorescent behind loose clouds that are dyed gold by the lights of the city, grey ribbons streaked with a yellow highlighter. As the cab curves away from the airport, rain starts to fall, just softly. Tiny raindrops glint on the dark windows, sliding backwards in beaded threads. 

Somewhere across all the rooftops and highways is the hospital, a red-brick building in Berwyn, with square windows and hallways painted mint green. With a sharp smell of cleaning products, with a view down into a tree-filled courtyard. Jimmy’s knee twinges to remember it. 

The cab changes lanes. A man with a Minnesotan accent calls in on a bad line to ask whether to break up with the girlfriend who’s cheating on him. The host makes sympathetic noises at the back of her throat, and the taxi keeps groaning along, and the little cartoon pine tree sways and sways until finally they’re pulling off the freeway and passing beneath rail bridges and old factories and the empty spaces where old factories used to be. Neon pinks and blues spill from all-night bars, glistening in the rain.

And then the old buildings turn into older houses, mismatched weatherboards and brick-and-tiles. In the night, the rooms with open curtains broadcast their interiors to the street, their square windows like television screens showing living rooms in profile, showing a mother washing dishes above a blue kitchen sink. They offer glimpses of bright domesticity between the dark-leafed trees, between the empty front yards and emptier lots. Buildings that were foreclosed when Jimmy was last here five months ago for Christmas are missing now. A letter “B” has fallen from the sign on the _Town Hall Bowl._

But still his mother’s house appears from the darkness as it always does, the one unchanging part of the street. The white weatherboard is soft under the streetlamps. Christmas lights still hang from the awnings, tangled and extinguished. She hasn’t taken them down yet this year. 

The taxi stops a couple of houses down, idling. The advice-show host on the radio is reading an advertisement now, and the driver dials down the volume then twists back in his seat. The dome light above them comes on slowly, filling the cab with gentle yellow. 

Jimmy clears his throat. “Yeah,” he says, gaze flicking again to the white beacon of the old house again, then back. “Yeah, this is good.” He fishes for his wallet in his pants pocket as the driver flicks buttons on the fare machine, as Kim opens her door and steps out onto the street. Jimmy hands over some cash and then joins her. 

It’s still warm, the air caressing his bare forearms. Kim’s looking over at the neighbor’s place, a narrow brick bungalow. Her forehead creases.

“It’s this one, next door,” Jimmy says, nodding to his old house. It’s strange that she doesn’t know it already, doesn’t know it without him saying. He adjusts his bag on his shoulder, grunting with the weight of his hastily-packed clothes. Exhales, then crosses the darkened street and approaches the familiar house. 

The yard is nearing overgrown, the grass long and dotted with tall weeds. Jimmy climbs the front steps and sets his bag down. He skims his fingertips along the top of the doorframe, through the dust and accumulated dirt until he feels the hard edge of a key. 

He takes it down and slides it into the lock. 

“Secure,” Kim murmurs, eyes glimmering.

“Yeah, well…” he says, and he gives her a weak grin. He turns the handle, pushing the door inward and stepping inside. Flicks on a light. The bulb spills yellow into the dim entryway, illuminating the striped wallpaper, the hall cabinets. 

The air in here feels musty, like the place has been closed up for a lot longer than it really has. Like his mother’s been gone for more than just half a day. Beneath the staleness hangs the achingly familiar smell of home, a smell that changes with the seasons, somehow. It’s been forever since he’s visited at this time of year, May coming into summer, and the warm air smells like trapped sun, like dust and linen. 

He turns back. Kim’s hefting his bag through the front door, and he holds out a hand to take it from her, but she just lowers it to the carpet next to her own, then she straightens. 

Before them, the patterned hallway vanishes into the darkness. It suddenly seems so cramped and so small. So claustrophobic. He remembers running up and down this hallway as a kid, remembers it feeling back then like an Olympic racing track or an airport runway, but now he thinks he could walk down it in three steps, thinks he could almost touch one end from the other. 

“So this is it,” he says softly, not looking at her. He trails his hand along a cabinet, walking down to the kitchen instead. Flicks on the lights in there, too. Today’s newspaper is folded open to the crossword on the countertop. As he picks it up, he hears Kim behind him, her footsteps slowing to a stop. He looks over and says, “D’you want a drink or anything?” 

She frowns. “A drink?” 

“I meant, like…water,” he says, “or coffee. Do you want a coffee?” 

“Jimmy,” she murmurs. She’s standing where the kitchen meets the living room, half-in and half-out of the space. Her forehead creases again. 

“Yeah,” he says carefully, and he looks down again. “Okay, yeah.” He lowers the newspaper and opens the top kitchen drawer. The keys to his mother’s car lie there, on top of the old takeout menus and batteries and coupons. He jangles them around in his palm, then looks outside. “Uh, car’s out back.”

So Kim follows him out of the kitchen and into the mudroom, where jackets and coats hang on their hooks like shapeless ghosts, where empty boxes pile against the wall, waiting to be recycled. He leads her out into the darkened backyard. The grass is overgrown here, too, and the old tree near the far fence is a tangled black shape against the moonlit sky. 

Jimmy forces open the lopsided door to the garage and then steps inside. The old Volvo is tucked away in here, and he drags the white cover off it, revealing dark seafoam-green paint flecked with age and rust. He slides into the front seat, one leg inside the car and one leg out, and tries the ignition. It splutters and spits and then catches, and he revs the accelerator, the engine grumbling then settling. 

He nods to Kim, who’s already standing by the garage door, waiting, and she rolls the door up. The metal creaks. Jimmy settles properly into the driver's seat, shutting himself in, and then he twists on the lights. They shine in warm cones that have Kim holding a hand up to her face as he drives past her, out into the back alley. He idles there in the darkness, the engine chugging. The tall trees of the neighbors are black shapes here, too. 

The passenger door opens and Kim hops in, huffing out a breath as she sits. His mother’s old sheepskin covers are still on the front seats, and Kim rubs her thumb over the edge of hers. Her nail traces small circles on the white, flattening the woolen threads, then she looks to him.

And Jimmy wonders why it always feels like he’s waiting for her to say something. Like he’s idling here now because he’s waiting for her permission to leave. So he clears his throat, and looks forward, and drives, slow through the alley and then out into the sleepy Cicero streets. They merge onto the main road, and then turn to cross Laramie Bridge. The old Volvo handles sluggishly, like the tires need air. There’s the flash of train cars and colorful containers through the bridge railings, red and blue and red. 

Another turn, and Jimmy follows the next road as it runs parallel with the train tracks, past empty lots and old storefronts. Past an electrical substation that rises monstrously from the earth, pylons and towers and reddened metal coils. Past the old costume shop that’s been on the corner here for as long as he can remember, skeletons hanging in the dark windows. A train rushes down the neighboring line towards them, a burning-white headlight shining in a ringed circle on the front.

And then there’s the hospital, over the tracks.

Jimmy idles at the level crossing as another train goes by, as the red signals flash and clang. 

It’s all so much closer to his mother’s house than he ever remembers, so much closer than it had felt when he stayed here after his surgery years ago. Then, it had felt more like another city. Back when it was just him alone in the mint-green ward with the leafy courtyard below and the bone-cold ache in his knee and not enough cash in his pockets. 

The train goes by, vanishing all-at-once, and the bars slowly rise up over the level crossing. Jimmy drives across and passes the hospital entrance, and then he’s pulling into the wide, tree-lined parking lot. It’s pretty full even though it’s late at night, but he finds a space and turns into it and stops. 

Shuts off the engine. 

He sits, just for a minute, in the car, not moving. Kim doesn’t move either. It smells like the past in here, too—like once-damp seat covers, the perfumed scent of something floral and earthy. He releases the steering wheel, the skin of his palms creaking over the leather. 

And he and Kim step out into the warm night. The haze of gentle rain is still falling, and the white sign for the hospital glows in flaring neon. As he steps through the automatic glass doors, it feels like stepping into a different time zone—lights glaring and phones ringing and people walking swiftly through the halls. 

Jimmy heads up to the front desk and waits. When the woman is free, he gives his mother’s name, and she checks something on a green computer screen then directs him down the hall: two lefts and a right and then ask again at the desk there, okay? He nods. Walks on past the desk, through the swinging doors that feel like a firestop against the rest of the hospital. 

But he lingers at the first turn. He stares at the glinting metal sign for the _Operating Room_. The acidic smell of some industrial cleaner cloys with the fat-edged scent of hospital food that’s wafting up from some ancient kitchen somewhere, even though it’s late at night. He stares at the sign, and behind it are the mint-green walls that had seemed all those years ago like a water’s surface waiting to be broken through, like water churning and churning and never settling, never becoming clear. Seething.

“Jimmy?”

He looks sideways to Kim—who’s here now, somehow, in this hospital. It makes sense without making sense, in the way that a dream does. Kim’s here because of course she’s here, even though she shouldn’t be, even though she wasn’t here then. 

Her eyes turn down softly, and he feels her hand on his bare elbow. 

“Yeah,” he says, finally. He takes a step in the direction of the _OR_. 

“Jimmy,” Kim says again, fingers trailing on his skin then dropping. “It’s this way.” She nods to the left, and now he remembers the woman’s directions. There’s a sign on the wall here, too. _Oncology_. 

“Oh,” Jimmy says. His pulse hammers. Oncology. “Okay.”

He exhales shakily, eyes lingering on the word until the dark shape of Kim moves from the edge of his vision. It’s easier to just follow her, anyway, follow her as she turns through the seething green hallways, as she takes another left turn then a right, as she stops at the next desk and says his mother’s name. 

The sign here says _Day Clinic_ , and it’s emptier than the other waiting rooms have been, with fewer nurses and doctors rushing around. There’s the steady beep of a machine, far off. Somewhere else, a phone rings. 

And, waiting, he sees his mother. Sees her before he knows he’s going to. She’s not off in her own room like he’d unconsciously expected, not in the room he realizes he’d built in his mind, the small ward with the view down into the courtyard. He’s not even sure _what_ this area is, this alcove half-off the waiting room, but there’s a muted television playing some as-seen-on-TV commercial for a set of steak knives, and there are a couple of patterned brown armchairs, and there’s the back of his mother’s head and the curve of her yellow cardigan. He knows the one just from the shoulder of it. 

Kim comes back from the desk. She must see the direction of his gaze. She touches him again in almost the same spot as last time, and says, “You go. I’ll wait here.” 

And he steps away from the tether of Kim. 

He wonders if his mother even knows he’s coming. When she looks over she doesn’t seem surprised to see him. She just smiles, face relaxing. Her hair’s grown out a bit since Christmas, curling down above her ears now, somewhere between grey and brown. Her skin is pale, but he’s sure it’s just the hospital lights casting sharp shadows and highlighting every curve of bone. 

“Jimmy,” she says, and she rises from the armchair and closes the distance to him. She wraps him in a hug, her arms solid and warm. He lifts his arms behind her, and into his shoulder she murmurs, “Careful of my back, honey.”

So he holds his hands there, hovering like small birds, above the yellow cardigan. He exhales. “You okay?”

“Of course I am,” she says. She pulls back. Tightens her own grip on his forearms and tilts her head to study him. “You look tired.” 

He laughs then and shakes his head. “Tired?”

She nods and squeezes his arms. “Have you been sleeping enough?”

Another soft laugh. “Yeah, Mom,” he says. “Yeah, I’ve been sleeping.” The swipes of black-blue seem to darken beneath her pale eyes. “Have _you_?”

“Oh, well, I need less sleep these days, you know,” she says mildly, but she gives him a small smile, an acknowledgement.

Jimmy smiles back. 

Footsteps crack over the floor behind him, and they’re followed by an Irish-accented voice: “Ah now, this must be the son I was promised.” 

Jimmy turns to see a woman in scrubs standing behind another of the other brown armchairs in the alcove, her hands resting on the curving back of it, like she’s shifting her weight off her feet. 

“You have good timing, Mr. McGill,” she continues. “The bleeding finally stopped a couple of hours ago.”

“Bleeding?” Jimmy says. 

The doctor nods. “Bone marrow biopsies are a routine procedure, but we saw some prolonged bleeding with Ruth here, and since it took so long to settle we think it’s best there’s someone around to keep an eye on her tonight.” The words sound rote, and he wonders how many people she’s already said this to, wonders if this is what was told to Chuck over the phone. 

When it’s clear she’s still waiting for a response, he nods and says, “Okay.”

“Good,” the doctor says, tapping her fingers on the armchair. “Now Ruth, you need to take it easy, keep your fluids up—and you’ve got the dressings? Good. Your son here…”

Ruth smiles. “Jimmy.”

“ _Jimmy_ can change that for you tomorrow, okay? It’ll be hard for you to reach. And call if you have any other concerns.” The doctor taps her palm once more on the back of the armchair, then stands fully upright. She retrieves a paper cup of coffee that’s resting on a waist-high wooden border encircling the walls here. The smell of the coffee, sharp and bitter, finally hits him as she carries it away.

He looks back to his mother, and she lifts a hand to touch his upper arm again. He smiles faintly. “So you’re okay?” 

“You know me, honey,” Ruth says, and she chuckles. “I’ve always been lucky. Give me a one-in-fifty chance, and I’ll find a way to win it.” The smile shifts. “Maybe ‘winning’ is the wrong word here.” 

He smiles back. “Right,” he says. He swallows. “Well, it’s good to see you, Mom.”

She squeezes his arm. “You, too, honey,” she says, and then she drops her hand. She squares her shoulders, somehow growing taller before him. “Now take me home.”

He chuckles and nods. Picks up her bag from beside the brown armchair. Square wound dressings in shiny plastic packages peek out from inside it, along with a colorful-looking brochure. He catches the beginning of a word— _ESSEN_ —in crisp blue letters that vanish beneath the canvas as he hefts it over his shoulder. He grips the strap tightly and takes a step back out into the main waiting room of the day clinic. 

Kim is hovering there, standing above a low table, flicking through a magazine that she can only just reach. 

Something in his chest relaxes. Jimmy grins as he walks over. “Hey, there,” he says quietly. “Reading anything good?”

A soft chuckle. “Just catching up on my _Horse & Hound_,” Kim says. She looks up at him and smiles—and then her eyes flick to Ruth. 

So do Jimmy’s. His mother’s eyebrows are up, and he turns from her back to Kim, then back to his mother. “Mom, this is…” He waves a hand, passing from one to the other, like he’s handing over the name: “This is Kim.”

His mother’s eyes twinkle, soft wrinkles forming at the outer edges. “Ah.”

And Jimmy nods. His gaze flashes to Kim, still hovering there with her arms at her sides. He clears his throat then says, “She, uh, she gave me a ride to the airport.”

Another smile flickers over his mother’s face.

“It’s good to meet you, Mrs. McGill,” Kim says, eyes warm. 

There’s a fraction of a pause, and then Ruth moves forward and wraps Kim in a hug. Kim’s arms rise, but, in a soft voice, he hears his mother say, “Careful of my back, dear,” so Kim’s hands float above the yellow cardigan, like his did, a few inches away from actually touching. 

His mother rubs Kim’s shoulder, up and down, and then they move apart again. Kim’s smile flickers. 

“It’s lovely to meet you,” Ruth says, giving Kim’s upper arms a squeeze before letting go completely, just like she always does with him. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” 

Kim’s smile shifts.

“But not enough,” Ruth says, pointing a finger for emphasis. “Not nearly enough.” And she turns and quirks a brow at Jimmy, wrinkles deepening around her eyes. 

He looks between them, from his mother to Kim then back again. 

And Ruth says, “So how about that going home, then?” 

“Right,” Jimmy says shortly, and he nods, catching Kim’s gaze for a fraction of a second—a glimpse of clear blue among the turbulent green walls, her eyes bright and filled with something he doesn’t have a name for yet. 

The three of them move, slower than earlier, out of the day clinic. The mint-green hallways of the hospital are still bustling, the off-grey floors polished and squeaking, the wooden fireblock doors swinging between the different departments. 

And then they’re outside again. After the bright interior of the hospital, Jimmy’s almost surprised to see that it’s night, that it’s still dark out here save the blue-glow of the moon and the haze of the light rain. As they walk to the car, Jimmy feels untethered, feels like each step is stopping short a few inches above the ground, a few inches above really touching. 

He fishes the keys from his pocket and unlocks the passenger door first, holding his hands out to help his mother inside, though she just brushes him away. He gets in the driver’s seat, the sheepskin cover soft and familiar as he settles there. The ignition catches easier this time, the engine running with a steady hum. 

He shifts into gear. As they pull out of the parking lot, he glances up to the rearview mirror. Kim’s eyes are only just visible in the dark. They flick to his, and he looks back to the road. 

The headlights carve a bright path down past the hospital. Dark trees flicker, leaves shifting and catching the light. The streetlamps here are old iron ones, curving downward, bent over the street like they’re kneeling there waiting for something. 

“So, Kim,” Ruth says, her voice quiet over the steady grumble of the engine, “have you been to Chicago before?”

After a moment, Kim says, “I haven’t, no.”

Jimmy smiles. He darts another gaze to the mirror, and says, “Go, Cubs, Go, right?”

Kim’s eyes soften as she chuckles. 

The car rattles over the tracks, then again as they cross the second line. Ruth makes another thoughtful noise. “It’s a good city for history, if you like history,” she says, nodding slowly as if agreeing with her own words. After a moment: “Are you from New Mexico originally, then?”

Another pause, and then Kim says, “Nebraska.”

“Ah,” Ruth says, still soft. She laces her fingers together then tilts her head and add: “I’ve never been. Omaha?” 

“No,” Kim says, voice quiet. “Just a small town.” And Jimmy can almost sense the air getting heavier with Kim’s thoughts, accumulating mass in the car until she says, “Not on the map.”

He exhales, with a strange feeling like he’d been holding his breath.

Ruth hums. “Well, then,” she says warmly, “I was born in Richland Center, Wisconsin, so I know something about small towns.” 

Jimmy turns off from the railway line, the car lazily obeying. He looks to Kim in the rearview again. She’s staring away now, staring out the window. As he makes another sluggish turn, he says, “When’d you last check the tires on this thing, Mom? Wow!”

His mother chuckles and then shrugs. “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t exactly drive it much anymore.”

Jimmy laughs lightly, flicking on the turn signal. “So, I’m hearing: haven’t checked ‘em since the eighties?”

Ruth bats him on the arm. “You stop that,” she says. She chuckles again then adds, “I think I’m going to sell it to Desmond down the road, anyway. He totaled his van back in March.” 

“That asshole?” Jimmy says, and his eyes flick up to catch Kim’s blue ones crinkling. “No way, Mom. Jesus.” 

Softly: “It’s just taking up space.”

He frowns. They stop at a set of lights, and he turns sideways to look at his mother. And he thinks it’s just the darkness and the unnatural red light that’s casting strange shadows, that’s highlighting every curve of bone. She’s not that old. 

He opens his mouth and then closes it again. He thinks of the bright pamphlet in her bag, of the word _Oncology_. 

And then the light shifts to green, and he drives on, turning off into the alley between the backs of the houses, where the old tires of the Volvo creak along the cement. The steering wheel trembles a little beneath his palms. Kim opens the garage door for them, and he coasts inside and then tucks the car back away, shutting off the groaning engine. He feels like he can hear the old thing exhaling, the engine ticking and settling.

The three of them cross the backyard, down the concrete path between the long grass and up to the door. Kim lingers behind him and Ruth, floating there like she’s on the edge of a length of string. When he turns back to her, her lips flutter upward in a small smile.

He smiles back, then turns away and unlocks the door. The lights are still on inside the house from earlier, and he moves through into the kitchen. Sets the car keys down on the counter, puts his mother’s bag beside them. The fresh dressings peek out from the blue canvas. 

Kim’s standing back at the edge of the room, just inside the doorway. He meets her eyes again. She gives a small cough and looks around her. “You have a very lovely home, Mrs. McGill.” 

“Ruth, please.” His mother bustles past the kitchen counter, waving a hand to Kim. 

Kim inclines her head. “You have a very lovely home, Ruth.”

“Well, thank you,” Ruth says warmly, stacking newspapers and magazines into one pile on the countertop. “It’s a complete mess.”

Kim smiles, eyes flicking to Jimmy. “I like that about it.”

Ruth returns the smile, and says, “Then I’ll let you stay, Kim-who-drove-my-son-to-the-airport.”

Kim looks quickly to Jimmy again, and says, “I don’t mean to impose—”

“Enough.” Another waved hand from Ruth. “Stay as long as you like,” she says, and then, as her eyes soften, “or at least until Sunday.”

And Kim says quietly, “Deal.” She inclines her head. “Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome,” Ruth says. She finishes straightening some invisible something on the kitchen counter, then looks up at the two of them. “Now, I don’t know about you, but it’s late,” she says, “and I’m going to bed.”

Jimmy lowers his hands to the countertop. “Can I get you anything?”

Ruth shakes her head. She reaches over and pats the top of his hand. “Just get some rest for me.” She nods to Kim next, then moves away, turning off into the hallway. 

“Mom—” Jimmy says, and he darts around the counter and follows her. He catches her at the bottom of the stairs. “Mom, wait, are we gonna talk about this? What _happened_ today?” 

“Honey,” she says, her eyes crinkling, “I’m tired. We can talk tomorrow, okay?” She presses her hand to his shoulder, palm warm through his shirt. “I mean it. Get some sleep.” 

He shrugs. “I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on _you_ , right?”

“Jimmy, I’m fine. I just need some rest. Okay?” She smiles to him then lowers her hand, and, after he nods jerkily again, she moves away. He watches the glow of her yellow cardigan until it vanishes around the top of the stairs.

And he exhales. Turns back and walks slowly again into the kitchen. Kim’s standing in the same place. He stands still, too, staring over at her, and he has the same strange feeling he felt in the car earlier, as if he’s waiting for her to say something, or waiting for her to…he doesn’t know what. Waiting for _her_. 

He runs his hand over his face, dragging down his cheeks, and he laughs softly. “Jesus, I’m beat.”

Kim folds in her lips. “Is she okay?”

Jimmy shrugs. “I dunno.” But he laughs again, sharper now, more bitter. “Yeah, I think so.” And then, across the darkened kitchen, the cramped and crowded space that seems suddenly unfamiliar, he says, “Kim, why did you come here?”

Her face shifts. 

And now he hears his own question hanging there. He closes his eyes, breathes out through his nose. “I mean—I’m _glad_ you came.” He thinks he is. He doesn’t know. He feels like he doesn’t know anything. 

So he opens his eyes again. Kim’s still there, in the middle of the kitchen, equidistant from everything, as if getting any closer to the fridge or the oven would mean asserting herself in this space. Her chest rises and falls. 

And then she moves, walking over the linoleum until she’s right in front of him. Her arms come up around him, and she presses her cheek into his shoulder. He floats his hands over her back for a moment, hovering birds, and then he finally lowers them, touching. She’s warm against him. 

“Jimmy,” she murmurs. “I’m sorry about your mom.”

He nods, her hair brushing his cheek. 

“And Chuck.” 

He pulls back. “What about Chuck?”

She makes a face can’t read, and her eyes grow soft. “Are you going to call him tonight?” she says. “Tell him you made it?”

He looks at the clock; it’s even later than he realized. Shakes his head. “He’s probably asleep by now.” 

She hums thoughtfully. Her expression shifts like she’s about to say something else, but she doesn’t. Instead, she lets her arms fall and stands there in his childhood kitchen, looking up at him. 

He chuckles, short and gruff. “I should probably be asleep by now, too.” He takes a step back, putting some distance between them. He can still feel the warmth of Kim against his chest, and he touches a hand to the spot then turns away. 

“Yeah,” Kim says heavily.

He looks back to her. 

“We should sleep,” she says, eyes boring into his. She tilts her head.

He hears the unspoken offer in there, in the pronoun choice and the turn of her brow. But he can feel himself shaking his head like somebody else is doing it. 

He runs his forefinger and thumb over his lip and looks out into the night; but, instead of seeing into the dark overgrown yard, he just sees himself and Kim, reflected there in the window. The yellow light of the kitchen spills around them, him in his striped blue button-up with his neatly combed hair and Kim across from him. A pair of strangers on a screen. He sees himself shake his head and lower his hand from his mouth. 

“Let’s just sleep,” he says, turning away from himself and from her. 

Upstairs, warm light bleeds from beneath his mother’s door, and he can hear her television murmuring. No sleep for her yet either, then. He opens the linen closet, and passes sheets and a comforter to Kim, their hands brushing. 

They make up the bed in Chuck’s room, Kim pauses to look at the cabinet of old trophies, the shelves of old textbooks. The photograph of Chuck and their parents on the day fourteen-year-old Chuck left for college. Jimmy tucks in his side of the blanket then walks over to stand beside her. 

“Do you remember this day?” she asks, pointing to the family standing outside the house. It’s still the same white weatherboard. Only the trees are different. 

And he shakes his head. “Just from the photo. I was still too little, really.”

She nods. “I wondered why you weren’t there.” 

Chuck looks unbearably young in the photo now, all dressed up, his suit still a bit too big for him. He’d grow into it soon. Jimmy laughs softly. “Probably never thought you’d be seeing your boss like that, huh?”

She gives a wry smile, looking at him sideways. “Well, I never thought I’d be sleeping in his childhood bedroom, either.” 

He chuckles. “No kidding.” He huffs out a breath. Takes in the room, the turned-down bed. Looks back to her. “It’s all okay, right? You’ll let me know if you need anything else?” 

“Jimmy,” she says quietly, “I’m good.”

“Yeah, well,” he says, and then he smiles, weakly. He stands there in the light of her gaze for a moment, and then, soft: “Thank you for coming with me, Kim.” 

She shrugs, a breezy, almost dismissive, thing. 

“I probably would’ve got on a plane to Tokyo or Morocco without you there, you know.”

A flicker of a smile from Kim. “Jimmy, we were in the domestic terminal.”

He grins and shrugs.

And she finally chuckles, shaking her head. She moves over to her own bag, the one she’d only just had enough time to pack on their way to the airport. She lifts it onto the dresser and smiles over at him lingering in the doorway. “Goodnight, Jimmy.”

“Yeah,” he says, and then, hand on the handle: “Night, Kim.” 

She nods, and he closes the door. In the patterned hallway, light glows from his mother’s room, and the television mumbles quietly. 

He doesn’t bother changing the sheets on his old bed. He just unbuttons his shirt, steps out of his slacks. Stands there in his undershirt and boxers. Slides beneath the covers and flicks off his lamp. 

And he feels, as he always does when he stays here, that he never really left. That he’s waking up from a dream, that he’s a kid again, and when he opens his eyes he’ll be in this room twenty-five years ago, with his model airplanes hanging from the ceiling and both his parents down the hall and his brother’s room waiting and empty. 

It feels like it’s been a lot longer than a day since he was working, since he was hole-punching documents down in the basement of Hamlin, Hamlin and McGill. Since he was sitting at the little square table in his little square apartment, the law school letters waiting in front of him. 

The law school letters. They’re still in his bag, almost forgotten. The thought of them feels blasphemous, somehow, now—and maybe it’s seeing Chuck’s trophies, or the photographs of his father outside the store, or maybe it’s just being here in Cicero at all. 

The television hums from down the hallway and sleep is a long time coming. 

* * *

The lawnmower hisses and spits over the grass. Jimmy tightens his grip on the handle, then grunts, pushing the ancient thing forward. He curves it around past the clothesline, where the grass is patchy and brown. The engine is a harsh vibration that seems to rise into the surrounding air, rapping against his ears, his chest. He can feel it in his lungs. 

It’s midday and the sun is high, tightening his skin with the heat of it. It reflects brightly off the white paint of his mother’s house. Jimmy squints, twisting the mower down past the living room window. 

From the back steps, a portable radio blasts tinny music he can barely hear over the chugging engine. He passes beneath the shade of a tree branch, a sudden rush of coolness, dappled leaves flashing over pale skin, and then it’s back into the pounding sunlight. He shakes his bangs off his face and breathes out through pursed lips, feeling the sweat prickling the back of his neck. And he knows he’s probably going to burn, can already feel the tenderness above his spine as his shirt collar rubs against skin. 

The mower splutters over a snapped branch, screaming as the blades hit, and— 

“It’s a kind of blood cancer,” Ruth had said, sitting across from him in the living room. 

The television’s muted, showing a baseball game from earlier in the week, and Jimmy suddenly desperately wants to turn it off. “Blood cancer,” he repeats flatly. In flat metallic letters behind his eyes, he sees: _Oncology_. 

“Yes,” Ruth says, and then slowly, like she’s a child sounding out the syllables of words she’s not used to: “Essential thrombocythemia.” 

He looks to the pamphlet on the coffee table, the one he’d seen in her bag in the hospital. His mother says the end of the word like it’s four separate ones: _sie-thee-mee-ah._ And he says, “Are you okay? What does that mean?” 

In the Cubs game, someone steals second. The sound’s off, but he can hear the cheers anyway, distant and hissing. 

The yard stinks of gas and the sharp tang of freshly cut grass. Jimmy fights with the mower, twisting it around the roots of the old tree down near the back fence. 

The roots have grown out a lot since he last did this, since he did this every couple of weeks as a teenager. They buckle and ripple over the yard, and he’s leaving patches of long grass everywhere the mower doesn’t fit between them. 

On the radio, the music stops and changes to a weather report. He thinks it’s a weather report; he can’t quite hear it over the mower. Something about long hot days heading into summer. 

Seems right, anyway. His shirt hangs on him heavily. The gas and the grass smell sweet and cloying together. 

“Jimmy,” Ruth says, and he looks over to her. “I’m doing okay right now, I promise.” She stares at him intensely, waiting for him to nod, waiting for him to—what, move on?

He rubs the side of his forefinger over his lip and frowns. 

And his mother says, her words small and specific, “I get tired sometimes. I have blood tests every few months. I’m on blood thinners.”

She leans forward with a soft grunt and picks up the leaflet from the coffee table. She holds it out to him, and he takes it. There’s a little cartoon doctor on the front, a bright red stethoscope hanging from his ears. 

“I got that for you,” she says, and she waves a hand, gesturing for him to keep it. “This isn’t the exact one I read, but it will help. I can never remember how to explain it properly, anyway.” 

He almost asks if Chuck’s heard, but he already knows that answer. Of course Chuck has heard. Jimmy swallows instead. He says, “How long?”

His mother’s face changes, and she leans forward, cardigan-covered elbows coming down onto her knees. Beside her, on the sofa, the old cat Delilah stirs. And then, so softly: “We don’t know that yet.”

Jimmy shakes his head. He feels like he hasn’t stopped shaking it since he sat down. “But did you know at Christmas?”

“Ah, right…” Ruth says, and she sits back again, exhaling with the movement. He can tell she’s trying not to put any weight on her back. Behind her, colorful knitted pillows are a fort against anything harder than downy feathers. She makes a thoughtful sound. “Well, I was diagnosed about four years ago. Coming up on five…” 

Jimmy huffs, catching his breath. He wipes the back of his hand over his forehead; it’s slick and hot and horrible. He lifts the collar of his shirt up and dries his upper lip, then lets it fall down, the cotton damp and stretched around his neck. 

The mower’s still kicking and hissing in front of him. He grips the handle and pushes it forward again, toward the old tree. 

The ground is uneven here around the ancient roots, rising and falling in places where they haven’t yet poked up through the dirt. The dirt dips near the fence, a little gully that used to fill with water when it rained heavily, where he’d sail boats as a kid—sticks with twig masts and leaf sails. Along the dried-up shore, the biggest root rises out of the earth. It has a little knot in the edge that a bird nested in once, that once was a pirate cave, a secret hideout. 

He passes the mower by it now, falling into the dip of the ground and then rising again, like a ship on the water. 

“Five years ago…” Jimmy murmurs. He looks out the living room window to the overgrown yard, to the long grass with its rising weeds. The yellow heads of dandelions. He wonders who mowed it last. Maybe one of the neighborhood kids. He thinks he remembers seeing an old lawnmower in the garage last night, tucked between the boxes of broken appliances and the gardening tools. 

“Jimmy?”

He turns back. Tries to clear his throat. Reaches for his mug of coffee and has a sip. It’s sweet and lukewarm, and he sets it back down with a clunk. At the sound, Delilah lifts her head up and blinks slowly. Ruth scritches between her ears, and the old cat lowers her chin again, nestling it between her curled up back legs. 

Jimmy rubs his thumb over his mouth, then frowns. “So if you’ve known that long, what was yesterday? More tests?”

His mother gives Delilah another stroke, then pulls her hand back. “Well, sometimes it can…progress. They have to do a biopsy on my bone marrow to find out what’s going on now.” She waves a vague hand. “That’s what they did yesterday.” 

Jimmy rubs his bottom lip again, then exhales. “It’s in your—bones?” 

Ruth nods. “I’m seeing my hematologist again in two weeks. She’ll have the results by then.”

“And what does that mean?” he says, leaning forward, closer. “It could be—getting worse?” 

She shakes her head, but her words don’t disagree with him. She only says, “We just don’t know yet.”

“Okay,” he says, softly. He looks at the happy cartoon doctor on the pamphlet. Back to his mother. “But how do you feel? Do you feel worse?”

“I feel okay, honey,” she says, nodding. Her eyes glimmer. “I feel the same as I ever did.”

And he thinks it’s just the morning light and the flicker of the television that’s shadowing her face, that’s highlighting every curve of bone. Thinks it’s probably just the pink cardigan washing her out. She’s not that old. 

On Wrigley Field, the Cubs hit a home run and the silent crowd cheer. 

Jimmy shuts off the mower. It rumbles lazily down to sleep, down to stillness. 

The radio’s finished the weather report now, and it’s back to music again. _Swinging Sounds of the Sixties_ , says the host, and then there’s a blast of horns and drums and Dusty Springfield starts singing. It’s all too loud, crackling and rattling the small speaker. 

He walks over and turns it off. Lowers himself down onto the top step with a groan, and he looks out over at the backyard, elbows on his knees. Among the roots and the sharp fence corners are dark and tangled patches of long grass, the places the mower couldn’t reach. Pockmarks on the neat and vibrant green. 

It’s hard not to see them. 

He wipes his hand down over his face, then dries it on his jeans. Exhales slowly. 

The door opens behind him, and he shifts forward to clear the space in front of it. Kim steps out onto the back porch, and he twists to look up at her, tilting his head and lifting a hand to block the sun. He croaks, “Hey.” 

“Hey there,” she says, softly, and then, facing the yard again: “Look at you. Yard’s looking good now.”

He nods. Moistens his lips, then, voice still raspy: “You been enjoying the show from in there?”

She grimaces. “Nope, way too painful,” she says. “I had to stop watching.” 

“Wow,” he says lightly, but he can feel himself smiling. “I’m actually sort of a professional at this, I’ll have you know.” 

She steps down a level, and says, “Oh, really?”

“Mm,” he hums, and he scooches over to make room as she sits on the top stair beside him. “I had a little business once. Well— _once_.”

She turns to him, head angling to keep the sun from her eyes, hand raised.

He chuckles. “Drew up some business cards and passed them out around the block. _McGill Mowing_ , or something, I don’t remember.”

She folds in her lips. “It didn’t catch on?” 

“Uh…” he starts, and he stares off at the patchwork yard. Shakes his head slowly. “No, it wasn’t that.” He grins and looks over. “So I didn’t actually want to _mow_ the grass, right?”

She laughs softly. “Well, of course not. In a mowing business, why would you?”

“Right,” he says, smiling, “that’s a sucker’s game.” He brushes some stray grass blades from his knee. “Anyway, I guess I just figured weed killer would strip everything back evenly…”

“Oh no,” Kim says, exhaling the words, drawing them out.

“Yeah, well,” he says, still chuckling, “poor Mr. Tucker’s yard never looked the same after that.” He tilts his head to block the sun again and grins at her. 

She meets his eyes, and hers grow soft, the blue of them warm. 

He jerks his head away from the house. “If we go for a walk right now, I’ll show you. The damage is still there.”

There’s a long silence. Inside, through the screen door, he can hear the television going softly. A baseball game, he thinks, and he wonders if it’s still the same one as earlier. He looks through a gap in the mesh-work, between the ornate metal pattern of the door. He can see the edge of the kitchen: the fridge with a calendar stuck to the door. 

Kim shifts, leaning against the railing that runs down the steps. Her eyebrows twist. “Do you want to tell me?” she says. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“I know,” he says, and he scratches his cheek then adds: “I will. I want to.” He swipes at the knee of his jeans again—there’s a grass stain over the denim. He rubs his nail against it then lowers his hand. Looks to Kim. “But later, okay?”

Her eyes grow soft, and she nods. 

And Jimmy looks back out to the yard. The old tree shakes, its leaves trembling. The screen door rattles behind him in a faint wind that drops again almost immediately, a gasp of coolness that runs quickly off the thick air like water. He brushes his bangs away from his eyes, his forehead tender and burning under his palm. 

The backyard smells of burning gas and cut grass.

* * *

“So, what, this is where you slingshotted pellets at soda cans?” Kim asks, looking around the old lot, where the flat earth is dotted with curling oak trees and an old red swing-set. The swings themselves hang on rusted chains, all tangled except for one of those kids one with the little legs holes. Kim points to the oaks. “And that’s where you threw rocks at birds nests, right?” 

Jimmy chuckles, kicking the toe of his shoe into the dust. They’re sitting on a low wall that runs along one side of the park, brick and squat, separating the grass and dirt from the sidewalk. “Do you think I was born in the nineteen-forties?”

She shrugs. “I’m just going by your stories. Newsboys on the corner, paper rounds, all that.” 

“I didn’t have a paper round.”

She makes a doubtful noise. “No? Just played stickball out in the street?”

“Whatever,” he says, grinning. “And Red Cloud was really up-and-coming, really big-city, huh?”

She lifts her eyebrows. “Well, I dunno Jimmy, you should’ve seen it when the bowling alley first opened up,” she says mildly. “Must have been almost fifty people there.”

“Shame I missed that, then,” he says, nudging his toe back into the dirt. 

She chuckles but doesn’t say anything else. 

He yawns, pressing his hand tight against his mouth. The park is surrounded by brick bungalows and townhouses. Small windows shine on their upper stories or from their lofts, and gnarled trees frame wide stone steps that ascend to closed front doors. Along the streets, old wooden power-poles rise, the kind with the crossbars and metallic coils and a dozen heavy wires strung between them. 

“So, where is it, then?” Kim says. 

He turns to her, shifting his palm over the warm brick of the low wall. “What?”

She gestures broadly to the area. “The famous McGill corner store.”

He blinks. “It closed.”

Kim snorts. “I know that, dummy,” she says, nudging his knee. “But it’s still around here somewhere, right?” 

He looks off to the east of the park. “Yeah, the building’s still there,” he says, finally. He hasn’t been there in a long time, hasn’t even driven past it. “Last I heard someone new finally bought the place, actually.”

Kim follows the direction of his gaze. “Is it really on the corner?”

“Yeah,” he says, grinning, “it’s really on the corner.” He glances sideways at her. “Okay, I maybe get the nineteen-forties thing now.” And he hops up off the wall, his sneakers sending up little clouds of dust from the dirt. 

* * *

But the new store couldn’t be further from the quaint past, from the big dreams of his father. It couldn’t be further from the narrow shelves of canned goods, the curling advertisements for Tab and Pepsi, the signs with the prices of eggs and bread. 

It’s a video rental, a big flashing sign out front. Just a mom-and-pop place, but they’ve gone all out. The windows are papered over with huge, vibrant posters of new releases. _The Fugitive_ next to _Mrs. Doubtfire_ next to _Dazed and Confused._ A life-sized cutout of Stallone stands beside the doorway, his arm folded, muscles bulging out of a black t-shirt. 

“This was it?” Kim says, looking up at it. 

There’s still enough of the old building left for it to be unmistakable: the dark brick exterior, the line of paler bricks that run around the base of the walls and rise to a trimmed lip at the bottom edge of the square windows. The uneven cement work along one edge of the sidewalk, the gap between it and the building where the weeds always poked up and where they’re still poking up now. “Yeah,” he says, “this was it.” 

She turns. “Do you want to go inside?”

He looks to her, and he can tell she means it with more weight than just the words themselves. There’s nothing of himself left in there anymore, he thinks. Even the old Band-Aid tin is gone from the ceiling cavity, and for years that had been his one thread of connection. At first, during long summer days or evenings after school, the tin of coins was a reassurance that he was different, that he was smarter, that he wasn’t really one of those _sucker_ _McGills_ —and then, for ten years later, leaving it there because he couldn’t bring himself to keep it anywhere else, it had felt like it meant something different.

Someone jostles past him, heading into the bright video rental. And Kim’s still watching him patiently. She brushes a thread of her hair free from her lips and smiles. 

So he nods, and they head inside. The store is jammed with shelves and posters that flutter with the air conditioning. An arcade machine jingles down at the back where the magazine stand used to be, and beside it rises a curtained-off area with age restrictions plastered all over the fabric. There’s still a popcorn machine up near the counter, at least, and, if he didn’t know that his mother had sold theirs, he’d almost wonder if it was the same one. 

Televisions are bolted to the green walls all around them, all playing the same flickering commercial for a new Kim Basinger movie. The sound is low: a dramatic piano, raised voices. But somehow everything seems too big and too loud, even though the store hasn’t grown at all, even though, if anything, the place feels smaller, and the explosion in the movie trailer is barely audible. 

So maybe it’s just that it feels like this place is already doing better than their old store ever did, that it’s ready to survive where his father couldn’t. 

“Jimmy,” Kim says, and he comes back to himself, her hand resting gently on his upper arm. 

He’s blocking the aisle, and he shifts to the side to let an old woman shuffle through, a copy of _Howard’s End_ clutched in her hand. 

Kim tilts her head slightly at him.

He chuckles. “Not much like the nineteen-forties anymore, I guess.” He looks around, frowning. Folds his palm over his other forearm. “We used to have the counter over _there,_ instead, right by the door,” he says, briefly pointing. He feels like a contractor surveying a space. “And Mom would do the books out back.” A point to one end of the store, where a hanging curtain hides the storeroom. Then another, gesturing to the other end. “And beer and shit down there.”

Kim nods as they move in that direction, to the ghosts of beer fridges. “And now,” she says, as they slow past the shelves, “it’s…romantic comedies.” 

“Hah,” Jimmy says, grinning. “Well, Mom’ll be happy.”

“Not a big drinker?” Kim asks. 

“Oh, no,” he says idly, “she just loves romantic comedies.” At Kim’s silence, he glances to her again and grins. “Why’d you think I’ve seen so many old Cary Grant movies?”

“I guess I thought you were a man of the world,” Kim murmurs, then she smiles softly, the curve of it toying with her lips. She looks from him to the shelf of videos and examines them, too, reaching out to touch the cover of _Frankie and Johnny_ , then along to _Born Yesterday_ —a new remake, Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson. Her fingers float past that one without stopping, and Jimmy hides another yawn with the back of his hand, the restless night digging at his head. Kim’s fingers dance over _Broadcast News… Coming to America_ … then her eyes cut to his again, and she grins.

“What?” he says. 

Her question is soft, almost somber: “Should we rent a couple? Keep up the legacy of the place?”

He laughs dryly. “Well, if I really wanted to keep up the legacy, I’d need to steal something.”

Her eyes flicker.

And he shakes his head, tossing the bitter laugh away. “Don’t worry, I only took from family,” he says. He plucks out a copy of _Pretty Woman_ and turns it over to read the back. Glances to Kim quickly. “I mean, mostly.” 

She shrugs, leaning closer to him to look at the tape, too. She hums. “Well, maybe don’t roll the dice on the Cicero judicial system again just for two hours of Julia Roberts.”

He grins. “Yeah, fair enough.” He puts the video back, and then nudges Kim. Waves a hand to the tall shelves where the fridges used to be, though it’s getting harder and harder to remember what they looked like in here, anyway. “Okay,” he says, and he nods, studying the colorful videos with exaggerated solemnity. “What’ve we got?”

* * *

Jimmy stirs. The sofa beneath him is warm, and there’s an old blanket drawn up over his shoulder. It smells like laundry and like Delilah. The cat herself is a solid weight in the alcove behind his bent knees. 

He must’ve fallen asleep during _L.A. Story_. The last thing he remembers is Rick Moranis digging a grave. It’s not even the same movie playing, now. Tom Hanks is walking up to a houseboat, a little boy following on his heels. Jimmy shifts, nestling his cheek into the pillow. 

Then, behind him, Jimmy hears the hushed voice of Kim say, “Hah, look at that.” Her words are almost too low for him to catch. She must be at the dining table. 

And then his mother: “That would have been, oh…’65, ‘66.” 

He inhales. Closes his eyes again, just in case one of them can see his face reflected in the dark windows that mirror the bright living room. He tries to keep his breathing steady and deep. 

At the table, they’re both silent for a long time, and he thinks maybe they’ve stopped, but then there’s a flick of paper, a page turning, and Kim makes a soft noise. “Wow. He really looked like him, huh?” she murmurs.

“Yes, even then,” Ruth says. Another turn of a page. “Look at them there.” More silence, just the slow voices of the movie, then: “It’d be something to see them together, now.”

Kim makes a humming sound. 

“And there’s Chuck, of course,” Ruth says, and she laughs softly. “He seems so uncomfortable in this one, don’t you think?”

There’s a quiet chuckle from Kim. The shift of something heavy over the table, like the album being twisted around, maybe. 

And the clink of a mug being set down on a coaster. It’s followed by the rustling of fabric. Until: “So,” Ruth says lightly, “You and my son…” There’s a flick of paper and then, “Should I be asking about your intentions?” It sounds like a joke, but Jimmy can hear the thread of seriousness beneath it. He wonders if Kim can, too. 

“We’re friends,” Kim says, plainly. 

“Hmm,” Ruth says. “That’s what he said, too.”

It’s silent for a while after that. A woman’s laughter on the television. Another flicked page, then another. “Well, there you go, then,” Kim finally adds.

Yet another thoughtful noise from Ruth, and Jimmy can almost see her face, see the narrowing of her eyes that he knows accompany the sound. He’s not ready for her words, though: “I know he can seem unreliable.” 

He feels himself stiffen, and he tries to relax again, tries to slow his breathing. The laughter on the television cuts out, and it’s a different scene now. The score swells. He keeps his eyes closed, looking at the warm backs of his eyelids. 

His mother finally continues: “I don’t know how much he’s told you about his life back here, but if you know much at all I understand why you’d think him untrustworthy. Why you might be wary.” A turn of a page, and brighter: “Look at that, that was up at my father’s house in Wisconsin.”

Nothing from Kim still, just the same kind of heavy silence that settles over Jimmy’s skin like a weight. 

“This must’ve been in ‘67, I think. Chuck wasn’t with us that year,” Ruth adds. She hums softly, and there’s the flutter of paper. 

And still just the silence from Kim, just the thick and seeping silence. He doesn’t quite know what he’s expecting, or dreading, will finally emerge from it, but it’s not what he gets. Kim’s voice comes firm and low: “I have _never_ thought that of him.” 

“No?” Ruth says mildly, as his heart tightens. There’s a soft drift of fingertips along the paper. “Well, he can be very loyal, too, you know.” The shift of turning pages. “He’s just…” She sighs. “Jimmy grew up as we lost it all. It made him scrappier.” And then, his mother’s voice growing even quieter: “And maybe it made him think nothing was worth fighting for. Nothing was ever worth hard work.”

Kim is quiet again, and in the quiet Jimmy’s pulse threads against his jaw, beating loud enough he’s sure the two of them will look over and hear it, will look over and know he’s awake. Then the low voice of Kim: “He _is_ a hard worker.”

And Ruth says lightly, “Yes, in his way.”

There’s a long pause before Kim says, “No. Not in ‘his way’.” He hears her exhale sharply. “He works hard.”

A rustle of fabric, and Jimmy tries to swallow as quietly as he can, as he hears his mother breathe in. “Does he, now?” Ruth says, and she makes another soft hum that only just carries over. “And do _you_ work hard?”

Kim say shortly, “I try my best.” 

“Mmm,” Ruth says. There’s the sound of a mug lowered to the table again, then: “I hear you did well on the bar exam.” A heavy old album closing. A tap of fingertips. “My Chuck is like that, too. Always wanted to be the best, and, lucky for him, he usually was.”

Thick silence, until, from Kim: “Right.”

A chair is pushed back, scraping over the carpet. Fabric swishes. His mother says, “Then there’s Jimmy.” And suddenly he feels his skin crawl like they’re both looking over at him now, the electric buzz of eyes on him. The hairs prickle on the back of his neck, and he tries to breathe steadily. “Well,” Ruth says, finally. “A hard worker. Maybe I don’t understand him that well, after all.” 

And, lowly, Kim: “That seems like a common problem.”

His mother doesn’t reply to that. There’s just the sound of them rising, shuffling footsteps moving to the shelf where the old albums are kept. Soon, another one lands on the dining table, the hollow thud of the photograph-filled pages echoing quietly through the room, and then the plasticky crack of the cover turning back. 

* * *

“Jesus, Mom,” he whispers, peeling the white dressing away from the purple and blue bruising that’s spreading up his mother’s back. He’s kneeling behind her, the carpet thankfully soft on his knees, and he breathes out through pursed lips. “How bad did this hurt?”

Ruth’s fingers clench on the hem of the pajama top she’s holding up at the back for him, but she chuckles. “Just a little.” 

“Shut up,” he says softly. “A _little_. God.”

“It hurt less than having you,” she says, turning back to look down at him. 

Jimmy snorts and waves at her to turn around again. He finishes peeling the old dressing away, trying not to look at the darkened blood on it—but there’s not too much, really. The marbled bruising spreads around from her spine to her waist, blotchy and speckled. 

He opens the package with the new dressing, trying to keep his fingers clear, trying not to fold the sticky parts over on itself. He looks at the stormcloud bruising and mutters, “Where do I even put this on?”

“Put it on the bit where it hurts.”

Jimmy shakes his head. “Just trying to figure that out…” And then he sees a little puncture mark, almost invisible among all the mottled blue and green. “Ah,” he murmurs, “I got it.”

He sticks the new dressing over it carefully, trying not to press down anywhere near the wound, trying to keep his fingers as gentle as he can. His mother is steady, calm. There’s a little layer of stretchy plastic over the new dressing, and he peels that away, too. 

Then he stands, pushing his palms against his knees to help himself back up. “Okay,” he grunts, “looks good.”

Ruth’s eyebrows lift as she lowers her pajamas back down over her spine. 

“I mean, it’s pretty bruised, but it seems okay,” Jimmy says. “No more bleeding or anything.” He swallows. “How’s it feel?” 

She frowns thoughtfully. “Tender. I don’t think I’ll be sleeping on my back any time soon.”

He shakes his head. Bends down to pick up the empty wrapper and the old dressing, and he scrunches everything up in his palm, the plastic crackling. Watches his mother shift pillows around on top of her covers, building a little supportive fort, and then he turns to leave—but he lingers in the doorway, staring back. He opens his mouth and then, just above a croak, “Thank you for telling me.” 

She looks at him, then frowns, like she’s studying him. She doesn’t say anything, just nods, and goes back to arranging the pillows. 

He exhales, and turns again, hand touching the door frame as he moves through. 

“Night, hon,” his mother murmurs. “Shut the door behind you, will you?”

He nods, and says, “Yeah, of course. Night.” He pulls the door closed behind him, and stands there for a moment. He hears the creak of springs as his mother lies down, then the soft chatter of the television. 

And he pads down to his old bedroom. The door’s already open, and when he steps through the doorway he finds Kim in there, standing over his dresser. 

She looks up at him and smiles. “Hey,” she says lightly. “Sorry. I’m snooping.” 

He gives a shrugging smile and says, “Go for it.” Pulls the door closed and then wanders over to join her. “Find anything good?”

She turns an old picture to face him: it’s him and Marco on the back steps, staring angrily at the photographer—his father, he remembers. Jimmy has his arms folded around the torn knees of his jean, and he’s got a huge jacket on even though he’s pretty sure it was almost ninety degrees out. Kim chuckles. “This one’s cute.”

He groans and says, “That was my dumb punk phase.”

Kim quirks an eyebrow. “Oh, did that end?”

He huffs and waves a hand at her. As she puts the photo down again, he settles on the edge of the bed, watching. She picks up a picture of him and Chuck over the holidays one year. He knows it from here. He’s up on Chuck’s shoulders, trying to reach the top of the Christmas tree, and they both have their backs to the camera. Kim lowers it again without saying anything. She looks through the other photographs. Lingers over the line of three old matchbox cars that are still racing along the beam at the top of the dresser. 

And he finds himself looking around the room anew, too. Sees the faded patches on the walls from his missing posters, the closet filled with all his curling paperbacks and journals. There are some doodles over the door of the closet, made with black marker. Most of them are his own initials turned into other things: the J becoming an elephant trunk or a pirate hook. 

“Stars?” Kim says. 

He turns to her. She’s just standing there looking at him, so he says, “What stars?”

She comes and sits beside him on the bed, the mattress bouncing. And then she points, up to one corner of his ceiling. He follows her arm but doesn’t notice anything for a long, drawn-out moment, until after Kim drops her arm again, when—finally—he spots them: half a dozen old glow star stickers, almost invisible against the white ceiling.

And he chuckles. “Ah, shit,” he says. “I forgot those were there. That’s embarrassing.”

Kim snorts. “ _So_ embarrassing.” She stares off in the direction of them, then points again. “And is that a spaceship?”

“Yeah, that’s a spaceship.”

She nods. “Very cool.”

He laughs quietly, then says, “Here.” He leans over and flicks off the light, and the bedroom falls into darkness. The shapes of his dresser, the nightstand, the closet doors, all slowly come back as his eyes adjust. And Kim beside him: a dark figure, lightening. 

The stars don’t glow at all, though. With the lights off, he can’t even tell they’re there. 

So he says quietly, “Maybe glow stars go bad.” 

“Probably,” Kim murmurs. “And they must be pretty old.”

“Mm,” he says, nodding. He looks sideways to the dark figure of Kim. “Those might’ve been from the dorky kid who lived here _before_ I did, anyway, you know.”

She laughs and knocks his knee gently with hers. “Shut up.” There’s a silence, long enough for him to tune in to her breathing, slow and rhythmic. “I always wanted some.”

He tilts his head. “Yeah?”

She nods and makes a soft humming sound. 

He hears her voice from earlier in his ears, the low one, and he swallows around the feeling of the memory and says, “So what else did you want?”

She turns to him, and he feels her move more than sees her. “What else…?” she murmurs. “I don’t know. A bunk bed, one with a desk instead of a bottom bed. One of those Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots sets.”

He laughs. “Okay,” he says. He shifts closer. “And?” 

“A neighbor to talk on tin cans with—like, on a long string.”

He nods, though he doesn’t know if she can see it. Her leg is pressed against his now, warm and solid. 

“A house with stairs. A bicycle with a bell and a basket. Someone to throw rocks at my window—or, hell, maybe _I_ wanted to throw rocks at someone’s window.” She chuckles softly. “Maybe I just wanted to throw rocks.” 

And his eyes must be still adjusting, because Kim’s face is coming out of the shadows: the glint of her eyes, the dark curve of her brow. The rise and fall of her cheek. He can see, now, that her lips are slightly parted. He inhales sharply. 

And he watches her mouth say: “What about you, Jimmy? What did you want?”

He feels the grin coming as it rises from his chest up onto his face, bright and shining. “I don’t know,” he says. “Nothing. A pretty girl in my bed.” He looks at her eyes. 

And Kim leans in and kisses him, and it’s sudden and clumsy and it’s been so fucking long, and he groans helplessly, pathetically. He tries to pull her closer, but Kim’s kissing him with a kind of savageness that feels new, that’s hard and fast, and she reaches for him right as he reaches for her and her elbow clacks against his as their arms tangle.

She pulls back from his mouth. She looks down and brushes his hands aside, then moves her palms slowly over his chest and up to cradle his head. They’re still sitting there, side by side, their torsos twisted, facing each other.

There’s a moment filled just with the darkness and their loud breaths, and then Kim leans in and captures his lips again, much softer this time. Her mouth moves slowly against his—then she draws back again, holding him. Breathing together with him in the brightening dark. 

When she moves in, her lips are almost painfully light on his, like feathers. Tickling his skin. He holds her waist, his fingers tightening in her shirt, not wanting to move. 

As she deepens the kiss, he pulls at her, first gently then strong, pulling her stomach close against his, pulling her so she’s tight up against him, her arms crushed between their bodies, breasts warm on his beating chest. 

And then he shifts backwards, falling so he’s lying on the pillows and she’s there above him. Her knee comes down hard on the side of his stomach, and he grunts, and then she’s settling over him, all her weight on his chest, her legs around his waist. 

He runs his hands up her thighs, up to her hips, dancing lightly until he finds her belt loops. He hooks his forefingers through them. Tugs on her jeans, and she grinds against him, and then she exhales just as shakily as him, ragged and warm in the dark space between their heads. 

“God,” he grunts, and he closes his eyes. Squeezes them tight. 

“Hey,” she whispers. “Eyes open.”

So he snaps them wide, gazing up at her. He can only just see her face in the soft light of the window. He laughs, and the sound of it in his ears feels almost manic, and then he kisses her. Drags his hands up from her hips, up to the place just above her waist where her back starts to rise with her ribs, and he holds her close to him, holds her body down to his and the weight of it's in his lungs. 

And then Kim’s lifting away, shifting back so she’s straddling his groin and the space is empty between them again. She reaches for his shirt, tugging on the hem, and he leans forward and helps her pull it off him, then he settles back on the pillows again. She leans down and kisses his solar plexus, right over the pit of his stomach, and the pressure sends bright sparks out along his skin. He holds her thighs, like anchors, his thumbs tracing little circles over the warm denim, as she works her way up his chest. 

And then he hears her voice from earlier, low and firm, talking to his mother. He still doesn’t know what to do with the words and the way they fill his chest and the strength of them and— 

“Wait,” he says.

Kim pulls back, looking down at him. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he tightens his hands on her, and he thinks that it fucking sucks that she’s still in her t-shirt right now, but he says, “Sorry. We gotta—Kim—” And he does let go of her now, drawing his palms inward. “Can’t do it like this again.” 

She frowns, hands stilling on his chest. 

He shakes his head. “The whole thing where we fly home tomorrow and we pretend it didn’t happen and pretend it’s all okay. I can’t do that, Kim.” He swallows, and then, throatily: “I can’t.” 

Kim moves off him slowly, turning over so she’s lying there beside him with her knees up. She breathes out forcefully, and he watches her chest rise and fall. Watches the profile of her face against the black. And then, finally, she says, “Yeah.” She twists to look up at him. “Yeah,” she murmurs again, “maybe neither can I.”

He gives a little half smile, just a fold of his lips more than anything. “Good.” 

“Good,” she echoes, and she returns the almost-smile, too. “Should probably at least talk about it first, huh?”

He nods. Closes his eyes briefly and forces out a breath, then says. “I don’t think I can handle much more talking today, though.” Against his eyelids he sees his mother’s face and the violence of the lawnmower over the dark weeds. 

He feels Kim move up the bed a bit, and he opens his eyes to see her head near his shoulder, the turn of her brow tentative and small. And he can feel himself breathing heavily, almost panting, trying to catch something that’s slipping away, but she just nods. “Jimmy,” she says, “I get it. It’s okay.” 

He exhales. “Yeah?” 

She smiles and then laughs, so gently. “Of course it is.” 

He hesitates for a moment, then curls his arm around her. With the touch, she shifts, tucking herself more closely against his chest. Her hand comes down to rest on his stomach. He stares at it there and waits for her fingers to move like they usually do, waits for her to start drawing patterns. 

She doesn’t. She just keeps it there, a soft weight. 

He watches her hand rise and fall with his breaths, watches it as Kim gazes out into the dark room. The room feels big and hollow now. “Are you upset?” he whispers, finally. 

She shakes her head, cheek shifting against his chest. “No,” she murmurs, and then, in a quieter voice: “Not about that.”

He doesn’t say anything. 

“I mean it,” she says, twisting again to look up at him. Her brow is drawn together, solemn. 

So he nods. “But about something else?”

Kim turns away again, tucking her cheek into his shoulder, facing the dark room. He can feel her breathing slowly, can feel the dark churn of her thoughts in the air between them. He lies there with her warm against him, and he waits for a gap in the riptide, waits for the whirlpool to settle. For something to flow. 

Eventually, she lifts her hand from his stomach and waves to the bedroom and says, “It’s just that it’s all still here.” And then, even softer: “It’s all still here for you.”

He takes in the dark shapes of his furniture and then squeezes Kim’s upper arm. “It’s only a room,” he says. “A room in a house. Four walls and a door.”

“Mm,” Kim hums, so quiet he almost misses it. She doesn’t move.

His stomach twists, and he squeezes his eyes closed, hard. Like he can trap those last words in his mind somehow, stop himself from having just said them. He rubs his thumb on Kim’s skin, then looks out at the room again, at the varied darkness. The empty corners. “So I’ll get you some stars,” he murmurs, after what feels like a long time. “When we get back to Albuquerque, I’ll buy you some glow stars.” 

Kim laughs, a soft, careful-sounding thing. She turns, pressing her mouth to the side of his chest. Her fingertip traces a little star into his stomach, and he thinks she isn’t going to say anything else, but then she does. “Okay, George Bailey, you’ll get me the stars,” she says, her lips moving against his skin. “I’ll take them.” And she looks up at him, her eyes glinting. “Then what?”


	15. North Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heads up, this is another very long one, so make sure you're sitting comfortably! thanks for reading ♥️♥️
> 
> i also made a playlist to go with this chapter [and here's a link to it on spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6fj6noCfxiaDpfQySyq0UC?si=lf-soDJbTC6RajoES-btgQ)

The face of Jimmy’s watch stares at him from the nightstand. He can’t see the actual time, not without pressing the button and lighting up the LEDs, so the face is just a dark, reddish circle. A flat disc on a glinting gold band. 

It’s still early, at least. The light that falls through the thin bedroom curtains is pale and drawn with the dawn, and he can feel Kim asleep behind him, can hear her steady breaths. Her weight on the tired mattress is like an anchor pulling him backwards from an elastic band knotted somewhere in his spine. He lies there with the tug of it for a while, looking over at his dark-eyed watch, knowing that Kim is there even though he can’t see her, not wanting to turn around in case he wakes her up. 

Somewhere outside, a car door slams. 

Jimmy wipes a hand down over his face. He exhales softly and slides out of bed, rolling his weight up off the mattress, his knees creaking. Kim stirs but doesn’t wake. She’s twisted on her stomach, her right arm wedged against her side and her left tucked up beneath her pillow. The elastic knot still tugs in his chest. 

He smiles. 

Pale lavender light slices over the bed, and Jimmy moves his hand in and out of the brightness as he gets his watch from the nightstand. He slips the band over his wrist and snaps down the clasp, then finally presses the button on the side: _5:13._

Even earlier than he thought. He presses the button again, and the date flashes up, too. _5 15._

He rakes his hair back from his forehead and moves on sock-covered feet past the bed. The whole room feels small now in the pale light, like the close walls are amplifying every small noise he makes, like the old dresser and shelves have overtaken the space. 

It hasn’t actually changed—and that’s the thing, right? Nothing’s changed. Not for him, not since 1979. High up in the corner, the star stickers are pale white shapes against the pale white ceiling. Stars, a spaceship, a ringed planet. A moon. He could peel them off now, and then they’d be gone for good. 

Kim lets out a soft, huffing sound in her sleep, tucking her face deeper into the pillow. Her hair falls over her lips. It drifts a little with each exhale, but she’s still. 

Jimmy releases his held breath. He bends down and unzips his duffel bag, slowly, the zipper groaning. The bag is filled with a tangled mess of clothes. He hunts around for a fresh pair of jeans then gingerly pulls them free—

His law school letters spill out with them. Sudden squares of white on his old blue carpet: the envelopes face down, seals intact. He steps into his jeans and buttons them, his fingers moving slowly, and then he crouches again and gathers the letters up. Rubs his thumb and forefinger on a slightly browner envelope, testing the thickness. Not very thick, but it’s nice paper. Heavy stock. 

Kim is barely visible from this angle, but he can tell that she’s unmoved, still twisted beneath the covers, her arms still wedged at strange angles. He taps the pad of his finger against the envelope, soft and rhythmic like a ticking clock. 

He puts the letters back. 

* * *

Downstairs in the living room, Ruth is already awake, too. She’s sitting with the newspaper folded over to the crossword and Delilah curled up near her feet. The fortress of cushions is arranged behind her just like it was yesterday, purples and pinks against the old brown couch. A nearby lamp is a ring of yellow in the soft blue light, and from the kitchen comes the sound of a little portable radio, the news on low. 

Jimmy moves closer, padding over the worn carpet. 

Ruth looks up. “Morning, honey,” she says, smiling. “You’re up early.”

“Running on mailroom time,” Jimmy says, and he perches on the arm of her sofa and turns to her. “How about you, you sleep all right?” 

His mother makes a soft humming noise. “Not bad,” she says. “Dee was howling for her food.”

The old cat now: curled up and content, her tail tucked over her eyes. 

Ruth _tsks_ , looking from the cat to Jimmy. “And after all that racket, she only ate half of her breakfast.” A light sigh and then, musically, first high then low: “Oh well. I was starting to feel cooped up in bed, anyway. I really need to get back on my feet.”

“Mom,” Jimmy says, shaking his head, “it’s been, like—a day.” 

“One day too many,” his mother says. She flicks a page back on the newspaper then looks up at him. Her eyes change, twinkling, and the musical tone returns: “And how’s _Kim_ this morning?” 

Jimmy smiles and shrugs, looking down. “Yeah, still asleep,” he says. He’d passed the wide open door to Chuck’s empty old room on his way downstairs this morning, too. He presses the button on his watch— _5:29._ At this rate she might actually manage a full seven hours for once.

Ruth turns another page in the paper, then folds it in half with a rustle and picks up her pen again. She marks down a couple of numbers then makes a thoughtful noise with her throat. “I like her.”

Jimmy grins. “Oh, good,” he says, soft. “I’ll keep her, then.”

His mother gives him a credulous look over the top of her reading glasses.

He chuckles and waves her away. “Yeah, okay,” he says, “I know.” He taps his hands on knees and raises his eyebrows. Glances to the dark kitchen then back to his mother. “You want a coffee yet?”

“Goodness, yes,” Ruth says

Jimmy laughs quietly and nods. He rises from the arm of the couch and walks through into the kitchen. Delilah follows him, the little bell on her collar jingling as she trots around the counter. She twists between his legs as he gets the coffee going, dumping the old filter and hunting through his mother’s cupboards for a new one. Rubs her cheek on his ankle as he scoops Folgers into the new filter. 

As the coffee brews, Jimmy wipes his hands clean on a dish towel, staring idly through the kitchen window at the fence that runs along the side of the house there. There’s a notch cut out of the wood, and he can see a slice of the neighbor's yard through it. Leaves wave on a spindly bush, and a yellow string is tied to one of the branches. From someone gardening, maybe, or children playing. He wonders if it’s still the same family living there.

The clock ticks above the fridge behind him, and coffee drips into the pot. He bends down and scritches Delilah between the ears, and she rubs her cheek on his knuckle, purring warmly until the coffee’s ready. He carries two cups into the living room, hands his mother hers, then leans against the edge of a low, heavy cabinet. There’s a row of old photographs behind him, and he knows them without looking at them: Chuck’s graduation, himself as a teenager sitting on the floor of his bedroom. He curls his hands around his warm mug. 

The television is going now, tuned to the weather report. All of Illinois is covered in clouds. The weatherman gestures calmly and Jimmy drinks his coffee. 

“So…” Ruth says, when the weather’s done. She leans forward to put down her coffee, then settles back. “Kim tells me you’ve been working hard these days.”

Jimmy almost smiles, but instead he just shrugs, loose-limbed. 

“Come on, honey, let me snoop,” Ruth says, and she pats her right hand on the couch. “What have you been up to? Sit, sit, indulge me.” 

So he heads over, the sofa springs creaking under his weight, and he twists to face her. 

Her eyes are patient. Patient and weary, maybe, just a little. 

And he does smile now, wide and almost disbelieving. “Well, I finished my degree,” he says. A swallow and then, because she hasn’t said anything yet, he adds, “Really. You got yourself two college graduates for sons, now—well, just New Mexico Community College here, but hey, they still give out the fancy piece of paper just the same as Georgetown.” 

Her eyes shine bright and warm. “That’s _wonderful_ , honey,” she says softly. “When?”

He chuckles and briefly covers his eyes, then lowers the hand. “I went back last summer.”

“Last summer?” 

“Don’t tell Chuck,” he says quickly. “He doesn’t know yet. I’m waiting to tell him.”

Jimmy’s hand is loose on the couch between them, and she reaches for it, squeezing the side of his palm near his thumb. Her skin is papery and warm, and then she lets go. 

“So, anyway,” Jimmy says, looking away, trying to make his tone bright, “I’ve been busy with that. Imagine me like, actually reading—well, okay, maybe not _reading_ reading but at least spending all my money on textbooks instead of a decent apartment or, I dunno, a real car.”

A soft chuckle from Ruth. “And what are you driving now, a Flintstones one?”

He groans. “Yeah, I wish.” He rubs his thumb over his lip, looking out at the orange-patterned kitchen. “I reckon they’re all out of Flintstones cars at the dealership. Should’ve kept my Cutlass, huh?” 

“Well, that one’s easy, honey,” she says. At his returning glance, she rolls her eyes, and adds, “Borrow the Volvo. I never use it anymore.”

“ _Borrow_ your car?” he says, and he laughs dryly. “Mom, I live in New Mexico now, remember?” 

“Shush,” she says. “I’m not senile. Drive it down to Albuquerque.” 

He lets out another short laugh.

“Or get Kim to drive you, I’m sure she could manage it,” Ruth says, and she presses her palms to her knees and rises from the sofa. As she bustles toward the kitchen, she adds over her shoulder, “This is why you should tell me things sooner!”

Jimmy bristles. Pot, kettle, huh? he thinks. He sits there with his mouth half open, but then finally stands too, following her. “Do you just want an excuse for me to visit more?” he says lightly. “Like any time you need the car back?”

She shrugs, rinsing her coffee cup out in the sink. “Well, I do like to see you, honey.” She holds out her hand. “Mug.” 

Jimmy blinks. After a moment, he hands over his own empty cup, and his mother rinses that too. Her hands are weathered and pink, twisting beneath the running water. They look old. “I should stay here with you longer,” he says softly, as she shut off the faucet. “Take care of you.” And then, when she looks over at him blankly, he adds, “You need someone to change the dressing on your thing again later, right?”

She scoffs. “It’s a Sunday, Lily will be here for dinner.”

“Right,” he says, “sure, Sunday, of course. But Mom…” 

“Please, Jimmy,” Ruth says, and she moves back out of the kitchen. “I don’t need any more babying—oh, good morning, Kim.”

Kim’s floating in the threshold of the hallway, wearing jeans and a cream-and-purple blouse. Her hair is pushed back from her face with a headband, and she looks freshly showered, her cheeks pink and her eyes shining. 

Jimmy smiles to her. He reaches for the pot of coffee and a clean mug. 

“Look at us,” Ruth says, glancing back to Jimmy, “a flock of early birds, hungry for worms.” Then her gaze snaps to Kim again. “Are you a good driver?”

Kim laughs like it’s a joke she doesn’t understand. She takes the cup of coffee when Jimmy offers it to her and has a sip, then says, “Wait—am I what?”

“Kim has to get back by tomorrow for work, Mom,” he says, propping his hip against the bench top. “So do I.” And he chuckles. “You know, my real job?”

“So do you, psh,” Ruth says, tossing a dismissive hand. “If my son can work you all so hard, I can keep you for a little longer. I’ll tell him you’re rescuing the car; I imagine he’ll be relieved. I didn’t hear the end of it over Christmas, you know.”

From the edge of the kitchen, Kim studies Jimmy, her eyes scrunched. 

“Mom wants me to take her car,” Jimmy says to her, “drive it down to Albuquerque.” 

Kim just shrugs. Looks between him and his mother and then says, “Well, it’d save us buying more flights.”

He frowns, trying to think back to that Friday in the airport, back to the friendly woman at the ticket counter. Didn’t Kim get return tickets? 

Kim looks at him for a long moment, and then her face shifts. She says, “I wasn’t really sure, you know…what the situation would be.”

Silence settles over the kitchen, spreading softly to the corners of the room. The clock above the fridge ticks, the second hand trembling with each stuttered movement. 

Then Ruth claps. “So, that decides it then,” she says brightly. “As easy as that.” She turns and busies herself in front of the breadbox, opening the curved lid and pulling out a loaf and untwisting its bag. “Oh, and honey?” she says, not turning back. “I think the tires need some air.” 

He laughs softly and glances to Kim, who’s still at the edge of the kitchen, her hands clasped in front of her. 

She raises her eyebrows at him, and he walks over, stepping around to her other side and then drawing close. 

“Listen, Kim,” he says quietly, “I can still take you to the airport, and then you’ll get back in time for work tomorrow.” Beneath the words is the thought: then maybe no one has to know that you looked through your boss’s childhood photo albums. That you had dinner with your boss’s mother this weekend. He shakes his head and says, “I mean, Jesus, how long is this even gonna take?”

But Kim shrugs. “We can get there by Tuesday,” she says simply. “I’ll call in sick on Monday morning.” Her gaze holds his. “Jimmy,” she says, lowly, “I can make up the hours. I’ll just tell them I’ve got a twenty-four-hour bug or something.”

Jimmy frowns, rubbing at his chin and looking away. His mother is staring over at them, too, and after a moment her gaze meets his own. As their eyes connect, she mimes a zip over her lips. She holds the pose for a couple of seconds, and then she smiles, a little glimmering thing that reaches the wrinkles around her eyes. Jimmy breathes out, and looks back to Kim. 

“I mean, really, d’you know how many times Jack has phoned in and I’ve had to pick up his slack?” Kim continues. “Believe me, I am _due._ ” 

And he feels a smile of his own crawling up his face, but he resists it. He says, “Kim, seriously, it’s gotta be like, a thousand miles. At least.”

“Jimmy,” she says softly. Her face grows still. Her eyes hold his, dark discs in the blue. There’s the slightest flicker of an expression, intense and unreadable and gone before he can put his finger on it, but, if he really had to name it, he would call it, maybe— _want_. 

As he inhales roughly, Kim breaks the gaze.

She says, “Well, fair enough, if you don’t want to do it, I know how much you love catching the bus—”

“Okay, fine,” Jimmy says loudly. “Whatever, I’m in.” And he lets himself, finally, grin.

Kim swats his arm and brushes past him. She pours herself another cup of coffee, the dark liquid splashing into the white ceramic. Pours one for him, too. When he takes it, his fingers brush hers. 

The kitchen fills with the sound of Ruth clattering in the dishwasher for plates, with the sharp smell of toast, and Jimmy leans against the counter, his hands around the warm mug. He lets himself think about it all, _really_ think about it. The freedom of a car. No more relying on Kim or the unpredictable bus. He could leave half an hour later for work, could get home half an hour earlier. 

And he lets himself, for a split second, think of Kim agreeing to drive down there with him for… God knows, however long it takes. For a thousand miles, at least. He can feel the smile tracing his lips, and he stands there, staring out the window and through the gap into the neighbor’s yard, to the spindly bush with the yellow thread still waving. 

* * *

“So you’ve got everything?” Ruth says, looking over Jimmy’s shoulder into the open trunk of the sedan. His and Kim’s bags both fit inside with plenty of space, tucked in beside an old toolbox and a couple of rolled-up blankets. “You sure you don’t want to go back inside and double check?”

Jimmy closes the trunk with a snap, the Volvo bobbing on its back wheels. “Mom, d’you think I was spreading all my clothes around like breadcrumbs? We were here two nights. Two.”

“Well, okay,” she says, and she looks up at him, eyes gentle. 

“I’ll call you when we make it back,” he says. He pats the top of the trunk. “Gotta let you know if the old thing makes it in one piece, huh?”

Or as close to one piece as it’s in right now, anyway. The paint-job is holding up well enough—a dark, sea-foam green—but there’s an orange rust running along the bottom of the windows and seeping down from where the wing mirrors meet the body. The body itself is angular looking, a 70s style sedan with a shovel nose. 1978. That year, the car was too shiny and too expensive, and his father’s grin had been shiny, too, sitting in the front seat as the rest of them stood around the new car in the garage. 

The garage itself hasn’t changed at all. It’s still warm, still smelling of dust and oil and lemon-scented things. An orange-hued bulb hangs on a wire with a string-pull, and there’s a little frosted window in the side door that lets in a haze of morning sunlight to catch the edges of an old sewing machine, of a broken KitchenAid and old paint cans. 

When Ruth makes a soft noise, Jimmy turns back to her. He says, “You tell me when you need it and I’ll bring it right back, okay? Seriously.”

She pats his arm. “Of course, honey.” She wraps him in a hug, a rush of floral-scent and warmth.

He remembers to be careful of her this time, and he rests his palms gently on her shoulders—just touching, no pressure. Ruth’s hand rubs up and down on his own back, shifting the fabric of his windbreaker over his t-shirt with a hiss. 

“I’m very proud of you, Jimmy,” she murmurs, and then before he can respond she quickly draws away, with the familiar squeeze and release of his upper arms. “Drive safe, okay?”

“Thanks, Mom,” he says, softly. “Really.” And then, even quieter: “And you’ll call me when you hear anything from the doctor, right?”

“Of course,” Ruth says. She smiles to him, greying hair curling back from her forehead, and then she looks away. “And Kim,” she says, moving around the car, “it was a pleasure to get to meet you.”

“You too,” Kim says, but her eyes are on Jimmy, soft and warm. Ruth moves around and hugs her then, too, her hands coming up to rest on Kim’s back, and Kim looks away from him. 

They hold it for a few seconds, and then Ruth releases Kim. She says, “Take care of him for me, okay?”

Over the roof of the sedan, Jimmy says, “She means take me out back and shoot me.” 

“Well, that I can do,” Kim says, and she grins sideways at him. “Put you out of your misery.”

“Of course,” Jimmy says, grinning back. He taps his palm on the car.

And then his gaze snaps to Ruth, standing there so small in the dusty brown light of the garage, and a part of him suddenly, horribly, wants to already be gone, wants to be on the road and out of Cicero and the green-walled hospital and the small house, with the eyes of his mother behind him and the flat yellow land of New Mexico waiting far ahead. 

As he lifts the garage door, he stares into the dark corners, notices the bicycle broken from when he crashed it into a concrete alley wall, notices the stacks of old magazines, the old dinner set with chipped edges. As he drives the car out into the alley, he feels the bump of the wheels over the lip of cement, feels the dip where the water collects when it rains. Where the leaves gather in fall.

And, as he sits in the idling car, as Kim rolls down the garage door, he watches the dark shape of Ruth standing there, her cardigan down over her hands in the chill of the morning, her hair drifting with the wind coming in through the gap, and he thinks he should appreciate it all more than he does, that he should stay here longer than he does—

But he doesn’t. He just watches as the roller door closes, and turns forward again, looking away.

* * *

In the car, nestled against the old sheepskin covers, with the scent of something familiar in the recycled air that blasts coolly through the console vents, Jimmy shuts off the engine.. 

He turns to Kim. Through the window behind her, the twisted trees of neighboring houses are grey-green in the morning light, watchful and stern. He should say something. After last night, he should say something. 

He opens his mouth and imagines saying that he wants to really be with her, all in. Cards on the table, chips in the middle.

But he can already see her shaking her head. He wonders darkly if they had slept together last night whether Kim would be here in the car with him, or whether she’d be on a plane home, ready to step back over some new line in the sand. 

Like she’s worried she’ll look to him one day, and he won’t be there. He swallows. 

“So it’s just us now,” he finally says, softly in the settling stillness. “No more Hurricane Ruth. I can still take you to the airport first.”

Kim frowns at him, her brow creasing. “What, and drive the whole way alone?” she says. Her face grows, somehow, even softer. “Come on, Jimmy.”

He feels something click in his chest, finally. “Well, all right, then,” he says. He turns the keys, and the ignition catches and burns. “Let’s hit it.”

* * *

The air pump beeps, and Jimmy removes the nozzle from the Volvo’s right front tire. He rises from the hard cement awkwardly, his knees aching, and then loops the air hose back around the hook on the machine. He’s checked each wheel twice, and the tires are holding okay. 

The whole thing feels like he’s running through the preparations for some ritual, like he’s stretching and inhaling before a long run. He kicks the toe of his shoe idly against the front tire, then gets back in the car and drives down to one of the gas pumps. 

And the ritual continues: He opens the gas-cap cover and lifts the nozzle from the pump and slots it inside, then clicks in the little latch under the handle and lets the fuel flow. As the gas tank fills, he wonders if Volvo have a different poetic name for the color of this car. River valley green. Seaweed green. Hissing, the pump churns out fuel, and the air fills with the biting, sweet scent of gasoline. Gasoline green.

Over the forecourt, trapped rainbows glimmer in patches of dark cement. 

The latch on the nozzle snaps down again, and Jimmy frees the pump then hangs it back up. Crackling music rattles from the overhead speakers, and it grows crisper as he steps through the automatic doors of the bright storefront. An old crooner singing alongside blaring horns. 

Jimmy waits for the attendant and then pays for his gas, and a couple of coffees, as large as possible, and some danishes. 

Kim’s standing in front of a rack of magazines and pamphlets, holding a road atlas. Her brow is creased, and she’s got the book open to a page for Missouri. He can see the spidery lines snaking out from Kansas City. All roads lead to Kansas City.

“So, you got it all figured out, yet?” Jimmy murmurs, moving up closer beside her. “Second freeway to the right and then straight on till morning?” 

Kim chuckles and turns. He holds out her enormous coffee. A smile flashes over her face, and she tucks the road atlas under her arm and takes the cup. She has a long drink, then indicates the road atlas by shifting her arm. “I’m gonna get this. You need anything else or you good?”

He waves the paper bag of pastries dangling from his grip. “All set.”

They walk back to the counter. As they wait for the attendant to be free, Kim spins a tall display of cassette tapes. Discount stickers are plastered all over it, stars and explosions and jagged letters, and then some less flamboyantly-advertised new releases. 

There’s a clock on the wall above the counter. It’s shaped like a little car. The minute hand is pointing out through the front windshield: _8:15._

The attendant comes over: a tall guy with stringy hair and a peach-fuzz mustache. He rings up Kim’s road atlas and her bottled water and then frowns. Nods his head to the stand of cassettes she’s still studying and sniffs. “Were you gonna pick anything, lady?” he says, droll and low and oblivious to the look Kim’s just shot him. 

Jimmy wipes a hand over his mouth to disguise his smile. 

“If you fill up on gas it’s buy two, get one free,” the lanky attendant adds. He gives another sniff, then nods to Jimmy, and, with all the condescension of a king, he says, “He got gas like, two minutes ago, so I can still put it through with the discount, actually.” 

Kim looks back to the tape stands. She nods slowly, eyes on the spines of the cases. “Yeah, okay,” she murmurs, and she spins the rack again. 

* * *

They walk back over the forecourt, the paper bag of pastries swinging from Jimmy’s grasp and the coffee warm against his other palm. The gas station is filling up a bit, now: an RV parking up over two spaces; a family having a conversation at the front of a loaded-down van; a businesswoman standing six feet away from the pumps, talking on a cellphone. 

Jimmy gets into the driver’s seat and nestles his coffee into the cup holder. The clock on the dash says _8:23_. He looks sideways at Kim. 

“Daylight’s burning,” she says, her eyebrows lifting.

And he laughs warmly, still surprised by it all. He turns the key and the engine kicks on again, and then they’re really going, the car groaning and then humming beneath them as the pass the empty red-brick factories, and the overgrown lots, and the low lines of old bungalows that vanish along every passing street. 

The sun’s a flash of white behind enormous grey clouds that loom over the houses, that swell hugely upward from the road as it rises to a bridge, crossing the train lines that run down past his mother’s house and out, out to the hospital and then beyond the city, always somewhere beyond the city. 

Jimmy doesn’t turn to follow the tracks this time. He drives on southward to meet the freeway instead, merging with the speeding cars that cruise down the smooth, wide lanes. They snake over old canals, over widened riverbeds that fuel the industrial city. 

As he drives, it becomes more and more the kind of grey and dark day they never get in Albuquerque. The sky feels low above them. It’s not raining but here it hasn’t been long since: the highway is sheet metal before him and there’s a glitter to everything, to the grass on the parkway and the dark-leaved trees. Jimmy sips his coffee, and Kim scans through the radio stations until they hit on a traffic report. Sunday morning and clear roads ahead. 

“So,” Jimmy says, as a cheerful jingle closes out the report, “what’s the plan, here? We just gonna put as many miles behind us as we can until we need to eat or, I dunno, pee—” He darts a quick glance at the two enormous cups of coffee sitting in the console. 

Kim snorts. “I’ll start plotting bathroom breaks now, huh?” She pulls off the cap of a Hamlindigo blue pen, and in the corner of his eye he sees her trace a line over the road map, running southwest of Chicago. “How long you think you can last—twenty minutes?”

“Oh, I can go forty,” Jimmy says lightly, reaching up to adjust the rearview mirror a little. “Maybe even forty-five.” 

Kim snorts, and says, “Yeah, you wish,” as she turns a page over in the road atlas. “I think we can get to Kansas City tonight. Maybe get a motel somewhere past it, maybe Wichita if we can make it. That’d be about halfway.”

“So, what, Illinois and Missouri today at least?” Jimmy asks. 

Kim makes a little noise of agreement. She flicks another page, then turns back, and says, “Damn.”

“What’s up?”

“We were supposed to get a free mug with this,” she grumbles, and she spins the map around to face him. There’s a little red starburst in the lower right corner with a picture of a blue and green mug on it. 

“Well, fuck that, then,” Jimmy says.

“Yeah, I’ll just throw it out onto the road,” Kim says.

He chuckles and shifts lanes, accelerating to pass a sixteen wheeler. Has another long drink of his coffee. It’s cooling already, bitter and sweet, and he chases it with an enormous bite of one of the danishes. “Mmrf, hey, help yourself,” he says, spraying powdered sugar forward onto the steering wheel. 

“Thanks,” Kim says, brushing a hand over her own face. 

He folds the last bite into his mouth then wipes his hands on his jeans. Twists a dial and scrubs through the radio stations (sports, sports, talk back) and then he just turns the volume down.

They pass brown road signs—first one, then another, then another. Jimmy’s eyes catch on them each time, the words holding his gaze: _Historic Route 66_. The signs point to a frontage road running parallel to them, old and cracked. Green and brown bushes speckle the ditch between it and the freeway, and there’s a low wire fence right before the edge of the dirt. 

The distant beginning of the same route they’d driven on together two years ago, back when he had felt like he was somehow rescuing Kim from something—when he had felt like he should whisk her away from the piles of textbooks and exams and classes. 

He glances sideways. A curve of cheekbone and the flash of blue headband. The glimpse of shadowed clavicle above her blouse. He can see the mole in the gap there without actually seeing it. 

He looks back to the road. 

And the memories of that are suddenly so vivid. Maybe it’s the time of year. Maybe it’s being on a freeway with hours ahead of them, even though it’s so different here: dark trees and rivers and the grey whorls of clouds above and still the glint of the since-gone rain on it all.

He’s not thinking about the freeway though, really. 

Jimmy clears his throat. “So, how’s work?”

Kim turns. “Work?” she says, after a beat, like she’s coming back from somewhere far away. 

“Mm,” Jimmy says, “the great upstairs getting you down?” 

Kim groans, and he hears the thud of her head hitting the headrest. But she says, “It’s fine. We’re not so busy as we were. It kind of comes in waves, actually.” She leans forward and fiddles with the air con, then settles back. “The professors warned us but I didn’t realize there would still be _so much_ to learn, you know?”

“That bad?” Jimmy says softly. 

She turns to the window, a flash of blonde in the corner of his eye. Her voice is quieter when it comes: “Jimmy, you know how grateful I am to HHM.” A pause, just the hum of the car. “But I suppose I can’t remember the last day I didn’t…the last day I just _didn’t_ , you know?” She exhales, and the blonde hair visible in the side of his eye flares again as she turns. “Other than yesterday.” 

He flicks a glance, skimming off her shadowed face and then back to the wide and vanishing highway before them. “Well, get ready for a whole lot of _didn’t_ today,” he murmurs. “Miles and miles of didn’t.” 

And he’s thinking of White Sands again, now, of the two of them alone out in all that emptiness. Just them and the rippled shadows over the dunes and the trapped colors of the falling sun. Miles and miles of didn’t. 

He taps his fingers on the wheel. Has a sip of the lukewarm gas station coffee. Nestles it back in the holder and quickly looks at Kim again, at the curve of her against the grey glimmer of the window, then stares forward. 

“Okay,” he says, slowly, wetting his bottom lip, “road trip game.” He waits until he sees her turn to him again, and then he asks, “What do you think is the opposite of coffee?”

She chuckles. “Is this some Chicago version of I-spy?” He stays silent, watching the road, until finally she offers: “Okay, I suppose, tea.” 

“Hmm,” Jimmy says, folding his lips and nodding. But he says, “Those’re both drinks. Both have caffeine.”

Kim doesn’t respond. He can imagine the patient tilt of her eyebrows without needing to really look. 

And he says, “Like, maybe the opposite of coffee is pizza.” 

“Huh,” Kim says mildly. There’s a moment of humming silence until she says, “You still put that in your mouth, though.”

Jimmy pats his palm on the wheel. “True,” he says. “True.” Another quiet moment. He says, “Okay. Pittsburgh.” 

“Pittsburgh?” Kim says, with new brightness at the edge of her tone. There’s a long moment, and then she says, “They have coffee in Pittsburgh.” 

“Do they?” He shrugs. “Have you ever been?”

“I guess not,” she says. She finally reaches for the paper bag of pastries and pulls out a danish, cupping her palm beneath it as she takes a bite. She swallows, then says, “I was thinking diamonds.”

Jimmy smiles. “Wow,” he says, “yeah, that’s not similar at all. Diamonds. Well done.” 

Kim has another bite of her pastry. She says, “Thank you,” her voice muffled. 

They’re quiet for a while. The wheels judder over the raised cat’s eyes along the road markings as he shifts lanes again. 

Kim says, “So what about the opposite of ice, then?” 

He grins. “Ice?” he says, and he makes a soft noise. “Well, obviously not fire.”

“Obviously not,” Kim says warmly. “They both burn you.”

“Right?” he says. “Totally. Okay, so the opposite of ice is, uh…” He rubs his lip. “Airplanes.” 

And Kim says warily, “Airplanes?” 

“Yeah, sure,” he says. “Ice is on the ground, planes are in the air, that’s pretty opposite.” He lifts a hand from the wheel. “Plus, ice melts.” A darted glance, his smile growing. “Planes do not melt.”

Kim finally chuckles. “No, not ideally,” she says, shaking her head. Another chuckle, then she adds, “Okay, well reasoned.” 

“Thank you very much,” he says, running the words together like Elvis. He waits a minute, until the clock on the dash ticks over, and then he asks another one: the opposite of a cow.

As they talk, the traffic on the freeway slowly thins. They pass the steep flat sides of factories, pass signs for rest areas and the turnoffs for suburbs and towns. The sky is close and grey above them, bright with glimpses of the sun. 

Eventually, Kim reaches down into the plastic bag at her feet and pulls out one of her cassettes. She runs a thumbnail along the plastic wrap, tearing it open, then slips it into the tape deck. The opening track is slow at first, but it swells, synths and bells and a sliding guitar, and it sounds like a funeral or a wedding.

The freeway crosses the river again. The bridge here is a huge, metal-girdered thing, crosshatched with rust-riveted beams and steel struts. Bars flash past the window on the other side of Kim, and, through the gaps, the Des Plaines river stretches widely off toward the tree-lined banks. The water is as grey as the sky, a mirrored patch of clouds. And here in the 1978 Volvo, with Kim beside him and a thousand miles waiting ahead, it feels just like the man is singing about in the song, like living on the edge of the world. 

* * *

“Huh,” Kim says beside him. She’s staring upwards, her head tipped back, hair drifting loosely above her shoulders in the wind. 

Jimmy looks upwards, too. “Yep,” he says, echoing her soft tone. 

“I mean…” Kim starts, and then she makes another thoughtful noise. “Huh. It’s definitely big.”

“Definitely big,” Jimmy agrees. “ _Definitely_ a hot dog.”

Kim nods. “Right,” she says, “and that’s definitely Paul Bunyan.” 

The man before them is huge, at least twenty feet tall, wearing a red button-up and blue jeans. He glares down at them with dead black eyes and tilted dark brows. Instead of an axe, he’s holding a hot dog.

 _Paul Bunyon_ , the sign says. He’s off brand. 

“Huh,” Kim says, again, and then by unspoken agreement they both turn away at the same time, heading back down the quiet, empty town street. It’s colorful and manicured, the storefronts all clean and freshly painted. They almost look like dollhouses. 

“So how many pigs d’you think it’d take to make that dog?” Jimmy asks idly, checking his watch and then tucking his hands into his pockets. 

“I don’t know what you think a regular-sized hot dog is made of, Jimmy, but that one is probably still only, like…half a pig,” Kim says. 

He chuckles, says, “Yeah, maybe,” and then slows to a stop, halfway down the wide and quiet street. 

It takes Kim a couple of seconds to notice he’s not following anymore. She turns back and tilts her head, her hair blowing sideways as the wind rises. “You okay?” she asks, finally. “What’s up?”

He points through a gap in the quaint, flat-fronted buildings, out over the train tracks. A yellow smiley face stares at them from hundreds of feet in the air, supported by a thick, white pillar. Its eyes are dark dots and its smile is enormous, maybe a dozen feet wide. 

Kim turns so she’s shoulder to shoulder with him. She lets out a little amused huff and then stills. 

The enormous face smiles at Jimmy. There are brownish stains around the lower part of the sphere, and the top is sun-bleached, off yellow and pale. Only the eyes seem to hold the same color as when they were painted: dark and sharp at the edges. Even the smile is fading into an accidental jeer as the paint becomes patchwork somewhere up in the dimpled curves of the simplistic cheeks. 

Beside him, in a low voice, Kim says, “God sees everything.”

He turns to her. “That’s a water tower.” 

And Kim chuckles, and pats his arm. “I know.”

They continue down the road, through the tiny town with its well-tended gardens and Old West-style storefronts. It feels like a perfectly-frozen capsule of the past, like stepping back through time. Just like the strange town up in the high mountains near Alamogordo that had reminded Jimmy of _High Plains Drifter_. 

On a patch of grass about the size of his mother’s backyard, there’s an ancient red ticket office framed by two identical oak trees. It looks like a city park in miniature: walled off with low red brick, and a tiny path twists circuitously up to the little red building, like something from a fairy tale, even though it’s only travelling about six feet. 

In the same block, a Route 66 gift shop is filled with trinkets designed to seem older than they are. The ceiling is low, and novelty lampshades hang at forehead level throughout the store. 

“What are you looking for?” Kim asks, as Jimmy kneels to dig through one of the cluttered lower shelves.

He glances up and laughs. “Albuquerque shot glasses,” he says.

She smiles and rests her hand on the top of his head, and she squeezes past behind him to look at a stand of fridge magnets. She leaves behind the shadow of the touch. 

* * *

Jimmy stretches, lacing his fingers together and straightening his arms up over his head, the bones clicking in his back and high up near his neck. He rolls his head around and then exhales, and lowers his arms. His shoulders ache.

“Want to swap for a bit?” Kim asks, coming up to the side of the car. “I can drive.”

“Mm—yeah, okay,” Jimmy murmurs, pressing his palm into the nape of his neck. He exhales, and leans against the sea-foam body. The car is warm behind him, and a breeze carries over the forecourt and then outward, rippling like a brushed hand over the endless fields of green corn that border the Love’s Travel Stop. 

Kim turns, and leans against the car beside him, her shoulder brushing his. 

Another gust blows, and the corn dances. He hears Kim breathe, just like the wind here, and Jimmy says, softly, “This your kind of country, yet?”

Kim stares off into it, her profile flat and muted in the overcast light. “No, not the same,” she says, finally. Beneath the grey clouds, her eyes seem grey too, pale and shining. 

Though the clouds are lightening steadily, more white now, really, and rippled like marble. “Mm,” he says, “guess this is more like, you know…” He presses a couple of fingers to his forehead, rubbing the skin, then quotes: “This plane’s dusting crops where there ain’t no crops.”

Kim chuckles. “Yeah, you better watch out, Cary.”

“I think that was the other guy, actually,” Jimmy says, picking up his soda from the roof of the car and shaking it so the ice cubes clack around in the cup. “You know? The guy waiting for the bus or whatever.”

“Sure,” she says, softly, and she smiles at him. 

He takes a long, rattling drink from his soda, draining half of it in one go, and when he lowers it Kim’s staring at him in barely-hidden amusement. She tilts her head, and cuts her gaze down to the jumbo-sized cup. 

“Hey,” he says, gesturing with the soda, “you said you didn’t want one!”

She holds out her hands. “Just throw me the keys.”

He does. In the grey and white light, they land, jangling, in her palm. 

* * *

The countryside passes in sliding flashes of power lines and trees. Farms and old houses peek secretively from the tall corn, their half-hidden windows and dark doorways like eyes peering at each passer-by over the leaves. Distant lines of dense trees mark the edges of other unknown places, obscuring the horizon. 

Jimmy props his left foot up on the dashboard and sits with his torso folded, watching the rush of green and grey. He presses the side button to flash up the red numbers on his watch: _12:48_. 

And he reaches down into the footwell and pulls up a bag of pork rinds, cracking open the plastic bag. He holds them out to Kim, and she takes a couple, her eyes not leaving the freeway. Jimmy nestles the open bag into the center console and then tips his head back against the headrest, tapping his foot on the dash to the slow and steady thrum of guitars on the stereo. 

In his duffel in the trunk, the law school letters. Six envelopes. He thinks if he started opening them right now, he could drop each rejection out the window like a trail to follow if he ever needs to crawl back to icy sidewalks and basement apartments.

* * *

Jimmy lays his hand on the statue’s nose. The bronze is warm from the sun. He rubs his palm over the smooth surface and looks into the dark, heavy-lidded eyes above. The pupils are holes carved deep into the metal. 

And he steps back. Kim’s beside him, facing the other way, so he turns around, and sees what this bronze bust of Lincoln sees: a great lawn surrounded by towering old trees, with green leaves and rugged branches. Storybook trees. The enormous low clouds of earlier are thinning, and there are glimpses of blue through the grey, patches of bright sun that move over the colossal cemetery, that throw afternoon shadows.

Inside, they’re greeted by another Lincoln, sitting proudly in bronze, smaller than life size but somehow still imposing. The statue is all lit up on his pedestal in the middle of the circular room. Jimmy and Kim follow the tall marble corridor that vanishes off the entry-room, and in its caverns they pass more hollow-eyed statues, pass more cold stern walls all hushed and still. Jimmy’s footfalls feel impossibly loud. Kim runs her fingers over the well-worn snout of a bronze horse. Over the top of a shoe. 

Then they turn another corner, and, glowing under spotlights like a singer on a stage, there waits the tomb itself, a red marble slab rippled and layered like a slice cut and lifted from the Earth. 

Jimmy’s eyes are fixed to it, to the great theatrical presentation of the thing. The piece of marble is encircled by saluting flags, with embossed golden words on the wall behind it. He hears the inhale of someone else turning the corner, someone else looking at the tomb. 

It feels as if he and Kim and all the other visitors moving here through the cold corridors under all the many eyes of all the many frozen Lincolns now return those bronze stares thousandfold upon this red tomb. Lincoln watching and being watched. The skin on Jimmy’s neck crawls. 

When he turns, though, Kim’s facing the other way, facing the wall crypt of Mary Todd Lincoln. The crypt marker is a huge rectangle of pale marble inside a black border, and it seems to swell under the beam of a single soft light. The squat letters of Mary’s name adorn it unassumingly, _MARY TODD LINCOLN_ all in capitals, in an even and characterless script. The letters watches the red glowing tomb of their husband. 

And Kim’s brow is drawn.

Jimmy thinks of the hundred-foot marble obelisk towering above, and a dead president’s body somewhere below, and them here in the middle. And it seems like everything here was designed so you’d feel the crushing weight of it all coming down on yourself, all the marble and heavy bronze, and the floor-to-ceiling crypts of Mary Todd Lincoln and her sons there holding it up. 

* * *

And he and Kim are outside again, now, with ice-creams. A churning wind rattles the ancient-looking trees on the edge of the cemetery, where the grass cuts with a clean edge along the sidewalk. The curb is perfectly, impossibly clean. The trees shake. 

“You know, she was holding his hand when he was shot,” Kim says, finally, words cracking through the rustle of the graveyard’s edge. She turns to him, eyes hard. “Can you imagine?”

Jimmy shakes his head. Behind Kim, the ice cream cart is sliced in half by the shadow of a tree. The dark leaves ripple over the white roof. 

“She only wore black after he died,” Kim murmurs. “And then she was institutionalized.” 

Jimmy takes a cold, sweet bite of his chocolate ice cream and looks away. He doesn’t know what to say, but he doesn’t think Kim needs him to say anything, anyway. 

In a sunlit wind, the trees move and then fall still, move and then still. 

* * *

Jimmy tilts his head back against the headrest and feel the vibrations drift through his skin, down into his neck and shoulders. The sheepskin seat cover is warm beneath him, and he cranks down the window, letting the wind whip through the music-filled car. 

It smells of the country, finally—like livestock, somehow sickly sweet. Tied-up hay bales dot the fields like spilled marbles. Jimmy exhales, and rolls his head on his shoulders, and then sits forward again. Picks up a Rubik's Cube from the dashboard, and turns a few of the sides, trying to gather the reds onto one face. He gets one line of them, then two. Twists another side. Spins it around. He can’t get the bottom left corner no matter what he does. 

“Fuck it!” he says. “I give up. It’s impossible.” He tosses the cube over into the backseat behind him.

Kim’s chuckling softly. She hums along to the track and then, light and just the right level of carefree to bug him, says, “You sure?” 

He huffs, and twists around in his seat, wedging a hand onto Kim’s shoulder for leverage as he stretches back there to grab the cube.

He can feel her tremble with laughter beneath his palm.

* * *

They cross the Mississippi mid-afternoon, the water dark and rippling in the wind. Here, the riverbanks are dense with trees and the kinds of tangled logs that kids would fish from in old stories. Kim drives slowly and steadily with the other cars, and one of the worn tapes that his mother left in the glove box plays on the stereo: 60s guitar lines that were recorded backwards on the track, with harmonic voices layered above. 

The clouds shift, and Kim flips down the windshield visor as the sun flares orange before them, floating above the other side of the river. The rays catch the dirt on the car windshield. 

Jimmy leans forwards and stretches, arcing his back. He bends and then straightens each of his legs. Rubs his thumb into the dip of his left knee and flexes it again. Hisses under his breath. 

Kim glances to him, her face light and calm. “Break time?” she murmurs. “Get some air?”

He huffs out a long breath, then nods. “Yeah, all right,” he says. “Hey, one state down.”

“Three hundred miles,” Kim says, nodding. 

“We’re almost there, then,” he says. The words come out with a thin layer of disappointment beneath the irony. He can’t tell from Kim’s expression whether she noticed it there or not. Three hundred miles and still hundreds more to go, and his body one big knot, but he feels the road vanishing now as they cross the first state line, and he wishes that it wouldn’t. 

As they reach the other side of the river, a sign for Missouri welcomes them beneath the burning afternoon sun. 

* * *

Jimmy rests his forearms on the warm metal railing, looking out at the river through a gap in the trees. He inhales, letting the clean air settle in his lungs, and then he expels it slowly, out to drift downstream with the wind. The trees here have thick, fat leaves that shiver with the sway of their gnarled branches. 

The afternoon sun is warm on his shoulders, and the light glitters in flecks on the surface the rippling Mississippi: gold over the green. Shadows stretch from the shivering trees and out to the water, darkening patches along the banks. The tiny mirrored glimpses of the sun seem to float in and out of the dark patches, flashing and then vanishing only to reappear some feet later downstream. 

And there downstream, along the shore: a town. From their vantage point, Jimmy can see straight along the main street. The buildings here have flat, old facades, too, and it’s like a perfect, sharp-edged slice has been lifted out of the town. 

The sun presses on his back, and Jimmy sighs. “This place like your Willa Cather?” he murmurs, and he looks to Kim. 

She turns away from the river to face him, too, her hair drifting over her face. She brushes it clear, and cocks her head to the side. 

“All the Mark Twain stuff here, I mean,” Jimmy says, waving a hand to the town below. “Mark Twain Avenue, Mark Twain restaurants, Mark Twain Bridge—” he twists, and gestures behind them “—Mark Twain Lighthouse.” The lighthouse is a tall, white-brick thing with a red door, picture perfect, that stands atop the overlook here. 

But Kim smiles, shaking her head. “It wasn’t like this, no,” she says, but then she frowns. “Although I really don’t… it’s been a long time now.” She shrugs lightly. “Maybe some of those petitions finally won.”

Jimmy shifts, angling his body away from the river and toward Kim. He tilts his head, and gives a little half smile, then he says, “Yeah, well. I reckon _these_ guys have probably tried to rename the Mississippi after Mark Twain.”

She smiles softly. “Be easier to spell that way, I guess.”

He chuckles, and then turns back to the slowly-moving water. The glimmered fragments of the sun float like flower petals between the shadows of the trees. 

And behind him, the lighted beacon of the lighthouse turns. He read a sign earlier that said it was first lit by President Roosevelt using a gold key in Washington D.C., a key that ignited a signal that traveled down telegraph lines over half the country until it reached the banks of the Mississippi and spluttered to life here, too far inland to protect any ships. A light just to turn and shine. He imagines the electric current snapping across America, and he twists his body around to look up at it now, at the slow flash of the old beacon. 

Eventually, he and Kim descend the narrow steps that climb the craggy cliffside, back down to the parking lot, Jimmy’s knee protesting weakly with the downward jolts until they’re back on lower ground. Here, at the river level, the dirt around the parking lot is patchy with dead grass and sand, and piles of tangled leaves and branches are gathered against the hollow parts of the cliff. A splintered tree lies half-in and half-out of the river. 

Jimmy flexes his knee again and then rocks his weight on it. Swivels his torso back and forth, elbows at right angles. He can hear the click of bones shifting in his lower back. “God,” he says, and he presses his palm into his spine and tries to crack it.

Kim’s eyes twist sympathetically. “Doing okay there, Grandpa?”

“Eugh,” he says, looking her up and down, looking at her easy stance, “how are you still in one piece?”

“I didn’t spend my twenties throwing myself at icy sidewalks,” Kim says mildly. 

“Yeah, you’re right,” he says, “I’m like a retired athlete.” He lowers himself down awkwardly, and lies back on the cement. Kim looms into his vision, her cheeks pink and hair loose with flyaways. “Don’t make me get back in the car, yet, Kim,” he says up to her. “I won’t do it.” He closes his eyes, the sun warm on his eyelids. 

The cement is warm too, and he can feel the muscles relaxing in his back. He could sleep here. Stay in this one spot forever. He could just melt into a pool on the pavement. 

“Hey, Kim,” he murmurs into the yellow darkness of his closed eyes, “d’you want to live with me in Mark Twain town? I’m sure they still need lawyers.” He shifts, rubbing his back against the pavement. “Or maybe we could start a river boat cruise, y’know? I’ll get one of those river boat… hats…”

“Jimmy, are you dehydrated?”

He opens his eyes and looks up at her.

“Don’t answer that,” Kim says, shaking her head. “You don’t need another sixty-four ounce soda.” But she smiles softly, and she holds out her hand. “Let’s go for a walk. Stretch our legs a bit more. And we can stop somewhere for dinner soon, okay?” She waggles her extended hand. He takes it and she helps him up. 

The sea-foam Volvo is parked up at the base of the craggy lighthouse, but they leave it there and wander down into town, along the main street he had seen from the overlook. The road is cracked in spidery lines, and the stores look like they’ve been open for a hundred years, from the time shop was still spelled with an extra ‘p’ and an ‘e’. There’s a gift shop with racks of t-shirts in the window: mostly with Mark Twain’s face or characters, but there are several shirts that say in big bright text, _I Survived the Flood of 1993_. 

There are other remnants of last year’s flood throughout the town, too. A yellowing paper in a shop window that assures everyone they have sandbags in stock, and news clippings up in the windows of cafés.

People sit under bright umbrellas at tables along the street like it’s a seaside resort, the Mississippi River one block over. The orange sun drifts down toward the tall shopfronts with their old-fashioned facades, with their ornate cornices.

And everywhere more Mark Twain: sculptures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, of the man himself. The shoe of one statue is polished and gleaming from years of being touched, just like the shoe of one of the Lincolns had been back at Lincoln’s Tomb. 

A building at the end of the street here has block letters raised above the flat roof on metal struts, _Hotel Mark Twain_. It reminds Jimmy of the letters on the old Hawthorne Works factory that had risen from the rooftop to proclaim to all of Cicero that the factory belonged to Western Electric. 

He and Kim double back up a different block, moving slowly through tree-lined streets. On the edge of the town, tucked against the rise of a hill, they come on a house that feels somehow too-small, or like two houses cobbled together. The lower story is brick, the upper white weatherboard. The building is cut cleanly in two along the horizontal, and neither floor seems tall enough for a person to really stand upright in. There’s a white picket fence and sign out front.

“Molly Brown,” Kim echoes, just as Jimmy’s reading the name, too. 

And he nods. “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.” At Kim’s glance he says, “Hey, I saw the Debbie Reynolds movie, too, you know.” He grins. “Loved the bit where the toy ship hit the iceberg.” 

“Mm,” Kim murmurs. She’s still looking at the old red-and-white house, and she chews absently at her bottom lip. Her thumb jangles at her side. She breathes in. “I watched it with my dad,” she says, eventually, her voice quiet—still looking at the house. She’s silent for a time again, and then she tucks a non-existent hair behind her ear and looks to Jimmy and smiles. “I guess he thought there was going to be more iceberg action and less singing and dinner parties.”

“Yeah?” Jimmy says, softly. The air around his feels fragile, like it could shatter if he moved too fast, or spoke too loud. 

But Kim just nods, and she looks to something in the distance behind him. Her eyes shift, back and forth, and then she moves away in the other direction. Jimmy turns toward her gaze. There’s nothing down there, just a cheap motel. He frowns. And he follows her back through the old streets where the ancient green trees swallow up the tiny bungalows, until the two of them are almost back where they began, at the top of the main street with the lighthouse on the hill behind them. 

The sun hovers in the west, dripping orange ink onto the clouds that hang above the hills. Wind rustles the branches of a manicured, fence-boxed tree on the sidewalk behind them, and Jimmy inhales. He presses the button on his watch: _4:39_. He rolls his shoulders again—they’re looser now, at least. 

Beside him, Kim murmurs, “Hey, world’s best root beer.” 

“Hm?” Jimmy says, turning to her. 

And she points to an old-style brick restaurant on the corner. There’s a sign on the door boasting about the drink, and on a tall wooden pole is an enormous brown model of a glass of root beer. It spins slowly. 

“Hah. I guess that’s three claims to fame, then,” Jimmy says.

“Yeah, maybe they should call it the World’s Best Root Beer Bridge,” Kim says warmly. She ghosts a hand over his elbow and moves off toward the place, saying, “Come on, I’ll get you one.” 

They stand with their root beers in a courtyard out the back of the restaurant. There’s a wooden pergola that crisscrosses over a collection of outdoor tables, and Kim leans against one of the supports. Jimmy stands beside her, looking off to where the street slopes gently down toward the river.

Through open floodgates at the bottom, he can see the slowly moving water, and the dense line of trees on the opposite bank. He imagines he can hear the rush of the water even though he knows he can’t, not really. 

The old-fashioned amber bottle is cold in his hand. He has a sip and then lowers it, staring at the solemn face of Mark Twain on the label. He frowns back at the old man. 

“What’s up?” Kim says. 

“I, uh—” and he grins lopsidedly at her “—forgot I don’t really like root beer.” 

“Well, jeez, Jimmy,” Kim says warmly. “Wasted on you, then.”

He chuckles, then waves a hand to her bottle. “Is it the world’s best, at least?”

She has another sip. Shrugs. “Yeah, it’s okay.”

“Honestly, Kim, I don’t know how you do that.” He makes a little disgusted face at her and shakes his head. “It’s like fizzy piss water.”

“Don’t let the ghost of Mark Twain hear you calling it fizzy piss water,” Kim says, her eyes glittering. 

“Why, d’you think he’s listening?”

Kim lifts her eyebrows silently and then looks around. There’s an enormous mural of the writer on a nearby brick wall, black and white paint in broad brushstroke, and a little caricature on the back of each menu, and other portraits, too, on hundreds of keychains in the store window over the street, and one fifteen feet above them on this side of the novelty root beer sign. Jimmy suddenly feels all the many pairs of eyes on him, feels them crawling on the nape of his neck. 

He widens his gaze back at Kim. He murmurs, “We’d better make a run for it then, huh?”

“Yeah, all right,” Kim says, and she pushes off the pillar. They walk beneath the crosshatched shadows of the pergola and back out to the quiet town streets, the air that's fresh and bright from the river. The wind ruffles his hair and cools his bare forearms. 

Jimmy drops his root beer into a trash can on the way back to the car. 

* * *

“God, okay,” Kim says, eyes bright over the round red table, “then what happened?”

“Well, I obviously had to go over there and see her, right?” Jimmy says, tapping his palm on the table. “She lived way out in Roselle so I had to get two trains—” He breaks off, leaning back as the waiter comes by to clear their plates. 

“Get you guys anything else?” the waiter asks, stacking their empty glasses on a tray and then smiling tiredly, dark lines creasing around his eyes. 

Jimmy taps a finger on his lips. “Another Maid-Rite?”

“You got it,” the waiter says, and he smiles at them again and then heads back down over the black and white checkered floor toward the kitchen, his red shirt coming untucked from the back of his slacks. 

Jimmy looks back to Kim, who’s staring at him dryly.

“Really?” she says, the word a single flat tone. 

He nods. “Yeah, I had to go all the way into Chicago—” 

“No—” she starts, and she exhales. Waves at the table before him. “How many more sloppy joes can you possibly eat?”

“Sloppy joes?” he repeats, reeling back. “Okay, Kim, first of all, these are completely different.” He holds up a finger. “Totally unique food. And second, it says they’ve been making them here since the 50s. Since the 50s, Kim! So they’re _that_ good.”

Her eyebrows rise. “Didn’t they put mercury in everything in the 50s?”

“Yeah!” Jimmy says, throwing up his hands. “And the mercury is what makes them good!”

She chuckles, head tilting down so her eyelashes catch the light. 

He grins. “Anyway, whatever,” he says, driving a finger down into the table, “stop distracting me.” He taps the finger again. His grin widens, returning to the memory. “So I get there, all the way to Roselle, and she has these hippy parents, super young, can’t have been much older than Chuck. They have carpets hanging everywhere, and these little, like, blue eyes up on all the walls just leering at me the whole time, okay?”

“Creepy blue eyes,” Kim says, nodding. “Sure.” 

And Jimmy nods along with her. “Yep. And of course her bedroom has a beaded curtain instead of a door.”

“God,” Kim says, snorting.

His heart fills warmly, and he nods at her again. Carries on: “We’re fooling around in there anyway and then her Mom comes in, right through the curtain. And I’m panicking, right?” He wets his lips, hands up in front of him. “But she just takes me off to one side and hands me a condom and winks. Tells me to have fun.” 

Kim chuckles, eyes wide. “So did you?” she asks.

Jimmy grins. “I mean—yeah,” he says. “Yeah, ‘course I did.” He gestures wildly again. “But it was _weird_ , Kim, come on! I thought in the morning her parents would be there with another damn report card for me. Like, I don’t know, D+ for the foreplay—oh hey.” He grins up at their waiter, who has suddenly reappeared at the side of the table. 

“Here’s your Maid-Rite,” the waiter says, unflapped, setting the burger down in front of Jimmy. “Enjoy.”

“Wait, hang on, I’ll maybe get—” Jimmy picks up the drinks menu, turning it over to the back where there’s a flashy spread of different novelty milkshakes. He frowns at them, wondering over the different between the _chocolate_ and the _chocoblast_.

Then the menu vanishes from his grasp. 

He makes an affronted noise and looks up. “What?”

“Jimmy,” Kim says, holding the drinks menu, “we’ve still got a lot of Missouri to get through.”

He huffs. “Yeah, all right, fine,” he says, and he nods to the patient waiter. “Yeah, we’re good. Thank you.”

The waiter inclines his head and moves away. 

Kim shifts in her chair, settling her head on her hand. “So, the curtain girl…did you see her again?”

Jimmy shakes his head. He shoves half his burger into his mouth. “Mm, nah,” he says thickly, “No way.” He swallows, then grimaces. “I mean, I mostly did it to make another girl jealous anyway.”

Kim groans, shaking her head and closing her eyes. 

“Hey, c’mon, you never did that?” Jimmy says, nudging her foot under the table. He imagines, suddenly, Kim kissing some faceless unknown guy at the back of a bar, the figures of the two of them writing in the dark, and it makes him want to rip his skin off, so he looks down. “Okay, yeah, it was really shitty. I was kind of a dick in high school, Kim, hate to break it to you.” 

“Like I don’t already know that,” she says warmly. 

He grins and shrugs. “We were all kinda dicks then, right? What about you? Come on.” He has another bite of his burger and raises his eyebrows, chewing patiently. 

Kim folds her lips inward and shakes her head. She glances away, then back to him. “Honestly, Jimmy I was just boring. Whatever kid in your yearbook you can’t remember at all? That was me.” 

“Uh-uh, no way, Kim,” he says, shaking his head. “No way. I’d remember you.” He’s never seen a photo of Kim when she was younger, but he tries to imagine her at that as now, as he finishes his burger. He can almost see her staring up at him from the yearbook page, blonde hair tidy on one of those mottled blue backgrounds, forced smile on her face. “What was your senior quote, anyway?”

“We didn’t do quotes,” she says softly. She looks off behind him, her eyes glimmering. A smile flickers over her lips, and she shakes her head. Drops her palm to the table with a thud and says, “Okay, damn it.” 

He grins, wiping his hands on a napkin. “What?”

“I just hate how much you’re going to like this,” Kim murmurs. She inhales. “In my junior high yearbook I got _‘best fingering’._ ”

He chokes. 

Kim waves a hand downward, and, over his splutters, she manages, “I played the cello!”

He drains his glass of water and swallows, then exhales shakily. “Kim, _what_?” 

“I guess that’s what happens when you fill a yearbook committee with a bunch of eighth graders and one ancient guy with tenure,” she says mildly. 

He shakes his head slowly, catching his breath and grinning. 

Kim smiles back at him under the hanging lamps of the diner. In the warm yellow light, wearing her headband and with her hair tucked behind her ears, he feels like he can see the thirteen-year-old version of her crystal clearly now. See her sitting in class and listening attentively, probably. See her playing an instrument that had to be almost as big as she was. 

“The cello, huh?” he says fondly. “I bet you were good.”

Kim snorts. “Jimmy, I was thirteen, I was terrible.”

He taps his hand on the red diner table. “Nope. Don’t believe that.”

“I really was,” she says, but she’s smiling again. “We did an outdoor performance at the school once and dogs a block away howled.” 

“Maybe they were crying out, y’know, _encore!”_ he says, hand up to the side of his mouth like he’s shouting the word louder than he really is. He lowers the hand and then shrugs. “You don’t know.” 

“True,” Kim says. She smiles softly at him, and taps her palm on the table. After a moment, she tilts her head and nods it toward the counter, and he nods back. He wipes his mouth on a napkin again then balls it up and leaves it on his plate, and they rise from their chairs. 

“You’ll serenade me sometime, right?” he says, as they walk through the restaurant. “Break out the old Brahms?”

Kim laughs. “Maybe,” she says, and she touches his arm as they squeeze through the gap between two other groups of diners. 

* * *

When the car finally needs more gas, the sun has only just set, and the sky is one enormous wash of indigo, still lit up from below the horizon. 

Jimmy’s driving again, his window down enough to fill the car with the warm smell of the highway. His foot is a steady pressure on the accelerator. The fuel light glows at him from the dashboard, and he pulls off the freeway at the first exit sign, slowing as they climb the off-ramp then turn left to cross above the steady drift of headlights.

Jimmy slows. There are no streetlamps here, just the purple half-darkness and the yellow glow of his headlights swimming along the black cement. 

Dark shapes litter the flat ground outside his window, hundreds of shadowed mounds, and he thinks for a moment they look like headstones—and then the cone of his headlights catches one clearly, and he sees suddenly that they _are_ headstones, that there are hundreds of them here, all stretching out into the dark. 

The cemetery runs right up against the road. No fence, no border. Just the mismatched curves and lines of the grave markers like animals grazing in a field. A flag flutters against the sky. The Stars and Stripes are colorless in the darkness. 

And then finally the blue overhang of a gas station fades up ahead of them. Jimmy slows, teasing the brakes. And he swallows. 

There are the shadows of half a dozen cars under the forecourt. The flash of his headlights reflects off the windows of the store, a sudden mirrored brightness, but there’s no other lights on here, no glowing sign or familiar brand. It’s all just black. 

“They look closed,” Kim says from the passenger seat. 

He nods slowly, swallowing again. But he flicks on the turn signal and pulls into the entrance anyway, approaching in the quiet whir of first gear, the tires creaking over the cement. He turns, and the headlights roll over the scene like a spotlight. He stops. 

And under the spotlight he sees they’re not modern cars but classic cars— _American Graffiti_ stuff with chrome bumpers and fresh paint jobs. A shining red coupe with a white top. Another in teal blue. Behind them all is a classic cop car. It has round headlights and a single, bulbous siren on the roof. 

“Okay,” Kim says, and he looks to her. It’s hard to see her expression in the darkness. 

He laughs weakly. “I guess it’s just, like, a fun little replica gas station.”

Her silhouetted head nods then turns away from him, looking off into the yellow spotlight of the headlights. “Oh my god…” she murmurs, and suddenly there’s the click of her seatbelt releasing, and then she’s opening her door and getting out of the car. 

“Kim?” Jimmy calls, and he watches the dark shape of her move off toward the classic cars. He curses, and turns off the engine. The headlights shut off, too, and he gets out and follows her into the purple-black twilight. 

Kim’s shadow slows beside one of the cars. Her head twists back to him. “Jimmy, do you have a flashlight back there?”

“Uh—no, don’t think so,” he says, and his voice feels cavernously loud, like he’s shouting. Softer, as he stops closer: “What’s up?”

Kim replies in the same lowered tone, “Just come look.” 

“…Do I want to?” He’s still a few feet out from the car. 

She chuckles quietly. “You definitely do.” 

So he steps closer, sneakers loud on the cement. As he approaches, he can see, behind the silhouette of Kim, another shapeless and dark figure: slumped over in the driver’s seat. He inhales. 

Kim’s head turns to him. “What do you reckon, Jimmy?” she says, and then, “Mannequin or papier-mâché?” 

He exhales, his pulse thudding. He steps closer and angles his head to study the dim shape again, more closely. It’s misshapen and horrible and probably _is_ an ancient mannequin. “Uh, how about a beach ball in a wig?” he says weakly. 

Kim chuckles kindly, moving down to the next car, and he follows close beside her. He can see a mannequin driver in this one, too. It’s wearing a floppy hat, almost like a scarecrow. Its fake hands are propped on the steering wheel. “Could be a crash test dummy,” Kim says. 

Jimmy clears his throat, the sound echoing over the forecourt. He says scratchily, “Could be bodies from the graveyard.”

Kim squeezes his upper arm. “Yes!”

And he laughs feebly. There’s a mannequin dressed as a cop in the police car, too, silhouetted in the window. An old policeman’s hat is propped jauntily on its head, all hard angles and the flash of a badge. 

“Come on Jimmy,” she says, fingers tightening on his arm. “So they crawl out here at night, act out their old lives…” She turns to him now, her face all shadowed, her hair translucent threads.

He says, “Must’ve done a lot of refilling on gas in their old lives, then.”

“Well… maybe it’s the whole town,” she says. Her shadowed eyes are locked on his. Behind her stretch the uneven headstones of the enormous graveyard, like jagged teeth. “Maybe,” she murmurs, and then lower, “ _maybe_ there’s a whole town down that road, with shopfronts just like this, and it fills with all the dead citizens every night, and then during the day it’s empty again. A ghost town.”

He can see her grinning widely, now, can see the dark and hollow shape of it. 

And she must notice something in his face then, too, because she laughs wildly. She releases his arm and pats him on the chest, her palm landing right over his heart. He inhales with the touch, and then she moves past him, back toward the car. 

Jimmy squeezes his eyes shut quickly. When he opens them, he doesn’t let his gaze return to the classic cars or the mannequins. He just stares at the old Volvo, and then he looks out, out and up—

And with no streetlights here or any nearby houses, the stars are impossibly bright. Glittering pinpricks in the vast purple sky. And around the stars runs the faint and ghostly river of the Milky Way, like frozen smoke against the night. 

Jimmy slows, his footsteps drawing to a stop, his head tilted back. He points up, and he says, just above a whisper, “Big Dipper.” The constellation is brighter than he’s ever seen it. It feels almost bright enough to illuminate the two of them where they stand here in the empty gas station, like each star’s a distant spotlight casting flickering pools all the way down onto the Earth. He turns, feet shuffling, and his faze follows part of the constellation down through the sky to— 

“North Star,” Kim says, suddenly closer to him, just as he sees it, too. He lets it flicker in his vision, the central spotlight now trained over them both, like it’s waiting for some opening number. Then he looks to her, standing there under the light. She’s staring upward, angular shadows falling from her jaw, her eyes glimmering. 

“Hey, Kim?” he says. He waits for her to look back down. “How’d the hell’d we end up here?”

She smiles lightly. “What, in a mannequin-filled gas station on the edge of a graveyard?”

He smiles, too. “Yeah, that.”

And Kim just laughs. She rests her hand on his elbow again. “Well, I think we needed gas.”

And he laughs, too. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Maybe let’s just try the next exit.” 

* * *

They trade off the driver’s seat again some time later, as the last of the blue light vanishes from the night sky. Jimmy tucks himself against the soft sheepskin seat cover in the passenger’s seat. The stereo jangles softly. 

“Opposite of blue?” Kim asks, her voice a careful hush. It’s her turn. 

He hums. Closes his eyes and looks at the faded darkness of his eyelids. Opens his eyes again. He murmurs, “Guitar.”

There’s a moment of quiet, then: “Oh, Jimmy,” she says, warm and quiet. “You can play the blues on a guitar.” 

“Hah,” he says, smile flickering. He breathes out slowly. “Yeah, I guess you can.” 

Silence settles comfortably between them: the rumbling silence of the engine and of the steady guitars on the stereo. It sounds like waves breaking, like the edge of a river rushing. Eventually, from somewhere on the shoreline, Kim murmurs, “Keep trying.”

He hums again. Thinks about the opposite of blue. He rests the back of his right hand on the car window and nestles his cheek into his open palm. It’s warm and steady and heavy. 

* * *

A touch on his shoulder. Jimmy comes back to the soft familiar smell of the old sedan. He lifts his head, blinking. Red and blue lights flare in his eyes. 

“Hey,” Kim’s voice says gently, on his left. “You fell asleep on me.”

He turns to her voice. She’s got her hand on the wheel, her torso angled to face him from the driver’s seat. He wipes the back of his hand down over his mouth. “Oh,” he says, finally, his throat scratchy. “Uh—sorry.”

Kim just shakes her head, smiling softly. Behind her, in bright neon, is a sign for a Motel 6. The light from it glows through her hair, catches in North Stars in her eyes. 

He shifts forward, looking up and out through the windshield. The sky here is muddy and yellow with light pollution. Tall poles of freeway lights are lined up in a careful assembly nearby, flaring green-blue. Jimmy reaches blindly down near his feet for a bottle of water, and he cracks the top then drinks slowly. Swallows and coughs then asks, “Where are we?” His voice is clearer now.

“Just past Kansas City,” Kim says lowly. 

“Hey, nice,” he says. He rubs his hand on his neck, surprisingly loose, looser than it’s felt for hours. Presses the button on his watch, and the red LED numbers ignite. It’s a little after midnight. He exhales, grinning. “And just in time for Monday. Not bad progress for a day, huh?”

“No, not bad,” Kim says warmly. 

He rolls his head on his neck, then looks out at the motel. There’s a strip of white neon running beneath the awning, and the blue-and-red sign is a huge beacon on the side of the angular roof. Most of the visible windows are already dark, but welcoming yellow spills from the lobby. 

He turns away from it, and looks to Kim, who’s dappled with neon in the driver’s seat.

“You need sleep?” he says quietly. “Or you just too tired to drive anymore?”

She frowns, brows twisting. “Why?”

“I can take over for a bit,” he says. His skin thrums, electric. He taps his palm on his knee, a soft noise on the denim. “Wide awake, actually.”

“Oh, so _now_ you’re awake?” Kim says, a smile ghosting her face, but she’s already unbuckling her seat belt. 

They trade places, and Jimmy settles once again behind the wheel. The leather cover is warm from Kim’s hands, and he rubs his thumbs against the stitching as Kim closes her door. 

In the passenger seat, Kim folds her legs up beneath her, and she curls against the window. 

“Kim, you sure you’re good?” Jimmy murmurs. “We can stay here if you want.”

She gives a little dismissive huff. “Daylight’s burning, Jimmy,” she says fondly, glancing to him, her silhouette glowing in the reddish dark. 

The elastic from earlier that morning tugs persistently at the tangled knot in his chest, and he nods, watching her, agreeing to something—to her suggestion that he drive on, or to the pull of the cord, or something else entirely, he doesn’t really know. 

* * *

He’s driving down a freeway. The road is almost empty, just a distant set of headlights far behind him, and the occasional onward blur. The road is perfectly, unbrokenly, straight. The road is dark.

When he looks to Kim, she’s asleep. A few miles back, she pulled his windbreaker up to her chin, and now she’s made herself into a huddled shadow with it. There’s just a peek of her face over the backwards collar. He can hear her steady breaths beside him even though he can’t really see her. 

Now, though, there’s the flash of a truck’s headlights, and he turns, and in the white light she’s made briefly vibrant. He remembers her all lit up in the snow-colored evening of the Owl Café. He remembers her telling him she wanted him. 

As she returns to the darkness he inhales and looks away. 

And he thinks of her looking blindly out at the old dead stars on his bedroom ceilings. Vanished stars—red dwarfs, or red giants, or whatever it’s called when a star dies, he can’t remember. 

He opens his mouth as if he’s going to say something, here in the car. As if he’s finally ready to talk. The music from the stereo is a careful harmony of voices. He knows he could whisper his thoughts to the old car and the old musicians and that she wouldn’t hear, but he just traces the words in his head anyway. We should be together. We’re good together. We just drove for a day in a car together, and we don’t hate each other, and you looked, actually, Kim—relaxed. 

You looked, Kim, happy. 

We just drove for a day in a car together, and we don’t hate each other, and I’m here. I’m here in the seat beside you and we’re driving onward together because things can last. Things can last, Kim. 

There are no streetlamps on the freeway here, just the beam of his own headlights. An ever-breaking shoreline of light rolling just ahead. 

* * *

He’s stopping at a gas station. He’s stepping through the automatic doors and into the monstrous white light, and the sharp smell of the cheap coffee is heavy in the dense air under the fluorescents, and the tired attendant blinks at him from behind a plastic screen. 

And in the filthy bathroom mirror, Jimmy catches himself. He doesn’t look tired. He doesn’t feel tired. He turns on the faucet, and the water runs smoothly over his hands. He twists them under the current. His veins are raised and blue on his pale skin. 

And then he holds his hands under the screaming air of a dryer, and the water beads off his skin and down to the tiled floor. In the flickering light of the bathroom, he presses the button on his gold watch. The ever-patient LEDs tell him it’s _2:13_. 

He buys a cup of the sharp-smelling coffee, and it tastes sharp, too, like daggers. He drinks half of it standing outside in the silky night air of the empty gas station, beneath an enormous sign that says, _Junction City_. The words float in his irises as he stares at them and he thinks—

—things can last. 

Kim’s still asleep when he gets back into the car. Her cheek is scrunched up against the window, and her eyelids are fluttering. Her shoes are off, loose down in the footwell somewhere, and her socks peek out of the bottom of his windbreaker, her makeshift blanket.

He sits there in the driver’s seat under the neon-white forecourt and turns to a new page in her map book, breaking the careful Hamlindigo blue line. 

* * *

He’s driving down a road. It’s not a freeway anymore. He’s got the radio on. It’s tuned to the only station he could find out here, a weather report, a list of temperatures delivered in a tired and monotonous voice. 

And Jimmy feels like the man’s voice is mapping the dark country around him, spinning out in electric lines and dropping place names down into the dirt. Dropping towns along the roads they’ve driven: Lawrence, and Kansas City, and Hannibal, Springfield, and Atlanta. And somewhere far off, landing in red brick: Cicero. 

Kim wakes at one point on this road. It’s so dark here he knows there’s nothing for her to see, just the headlights as they swim onward through the darkness. He doesn’t say anything. He watches her head turn out of the corner of his eye. The smooth fabric of his windbreaker hisses with her movement. She adjusts the air con vent on the dashboard before her, and then settles back in her seat. 

He can hear when she falls asleep again. Her breathing is steady, like a rhythmic tug on a string, like the swing of an old pendulum clock. 

* * *

He’s driving down a road. The road is narrow. He hasn’t seen anyone for a long time now. He doesn’t know how long. Even the radio station dropped out some miles, and when he scanned again he found nothing. He’s turned the volume down most of the way, but not completely. There’s a hiss of soft static. 

And Jimmy thinks the static will help Kim sleep. He rubs his thumb over the stitching on the steering wheel cover and darts a glance over just to make sure. There’s an uneasy weight hanging on a fraying thread in his stomach. 

The radio sounds like crashing waves, sounds like the sea. 

So he traces his words over with Hamlindigo blue pen in his head: We should be together. We’re _good_ together. Things can last. Things last even if you don’t think they do, even if you look away for a little while.

He feels, at least, that the more he traces the words, the more they flow into each other. The more they all make sense. They more they make a clean line from start to finish. 

He breathes, and Kim breathes, and around them the static of the dead radio rushes.

The sun hasn’t yet risen, but soon the enormous and cloudless sky fills with lavender dawn. The lightening sky lightens the land, lightens the open fields and the sheet-iron landscapes, lightens it all to a great pale expanse that stretches far away from the dark and starlit road and out, out to somewhere beyond the horizon; until finally before him, illuminated in the crashing wave of his headlights, a green sign in white letters says, _Nebraska Welcomes You_. 


	16. Red Cloud, Nebraska

The sun glimmers through the windshield, a pale disc that hangs just above the greying horizon, not yet warm. Jimmy breathes into his cupped hands. He rubs his palms together then folds his arms tightly, tucking his hands into his armpits and twisting his fingers around his t-shirt sleeves like he’s locking his hands in place. 

Kim’s curled up on the passenger seat beside him, still hidden beneath his windbreaker. Her eyelids flutter. He worries if he opens the trunk to get a blanket he’ll wake her, so he just stays where he is, his arms laced, and looks out at the flat sun. It leaves little ghosts on his eyes. 

He’s not tired. He can feel his heart strumming in his chest, reverberating from that moment when he’d reached the Nebraska border. Vibrations from crossing the line. They’re still not far from the border. He could turn back now and be in Kansas before Kim wakes. 

He doesn’t. He waits here, his heart ringing. 

They’re parked up at a rest area that’s not much more than a widening of the dirt shoulder, just a couple of empty spaces for cars and a large wooden sign. Nobody’s passed this way since Jimmy stopped, and it’s easy, in the cold and the quiet, to forget that there’s a road behind him at all. It’s easy to think there’s only more ancient grasses, on and on, unimpeded. 

Just them in the car on the prairie. 

Dawn licks up over the rippling land before him. Shadows pool like black water in the gullies, like the inky lakes of an old silent movie. Jimmy lifts cupped hands to his mouth again and breathes into his palms. His breath gives a kind of warmth that seems to steal more than it gives. He shivers. The inky lakes drift forward. 

He turns on the engine, the ignition kicking. Heat churns slowly from the dashboard vents and spreads through the thin fabric of his shirt, running out to his shoulders and then down his arms. The warmth does nothing for the feeling that’s been building in his chest all night like a crank being turned, like something being wound closer and closer to a breaking point. 

This is good, he thinks—this is good. Coming here made sense. We were so close and it would have been a waste not to come. It would have been sad to just pass by without stopping. 

The folded landscape before him looks black and white now, de-saturated. Just shadowed dips and pale white grasses. The creases in the land vanish into undulating distance. It’s all a wash, all soft shades of light grey and deeper grey; until finally the pale sun blinks and opens and suddenly all the colors ignite: browns and greens and golds, rippling outward. The tall grasses catch the sun and glint red with wildflowers—a deep purple-red, like wine. 

The cord cranks itself tighter in his chest. He could snap it right now if he woke her. 

He doesn’t. He just shuts off the engine again. Kim’s hair drifts in little eddies, and she huffs when the warm air stops. She doesn’t wake. The ticking of the engine settling is like the weary exhalation of some mechanical animal. 

And Jimmy wipes his hand over his mouth. His tongue sticks to his lips, peeling away to leave tender skin. The engine ticks and Kim breathes. 

* * *

He’s still watching the long dawn shadows ripple over the shifting grasses when he hears a rustle beside him. He turns. Kim’s hand emerges from beneath the hissing windbreaker, and her fingers wipe down over her face. She exhales unevenly, and Jimmy’s breath tightens in his chest.

Then she’s motionless again, for a long and stretching moment—but soon the hand rises once more and she rubs her eyes and opens them. They’re soft and scrunched and dazed. Pale blue and lingering.

His lips stick together as he forces his mouth open. He says hoarsely, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Kim echoes, just above a croak. She clears her throat and shifts in the seat so she’s a bit more upright, her hair falling over her forehead. She rubs at her face again. “Is it morning?”

He gives a humming agreement, then thumbs his watch. “It’s still early.” 

She nods slowly, like she’s processing the words. “How far’d we make it?” she murmurs eventually, brushing hair back behind her ears. “You drive through the night?”

He’s nodding now, too, and he swallows—an echoing crunch. 

Kim stills. The softness in her gaze sharpens. “Jimmy?” She sits up completely, the sluggishness turning into swift energy. “Is everything okay?” 

His lips are glue. 

And at his silence, her eyebrows angle steeply. Her pupils flick back and forth between his own like she’s hunting for the source of whatever horrible thing is no doubt painted all over his face.

He has to look away from the blue. He chooses to study some vague spot on her chin instead. 

Kim shifts forward, the windbreaker falling away. Her profile angles to look out through the windshield. He can feel a tightening in the air. A tightening of time ticking down and ticking down until her gaze locks, as he’s always known it would, on the square rest-area sign. He doesn’t need to read it again. He already knows what it says. 

_Willa Cather Memorial Prairie._

When Kim turns to him, her face is sheet-iron. “Jimmy?”

And the thing that’s been hanging in his chest finally snaps and falls, dropping like a stone into water, down and down. “Yeah,” he says, distantly. His voice rises from somewhere underwater with that stone. Well, Kim, we’re not in Kansas anymore, his brain offers dumbly.

But he inhales, and he says: “I was totally wired, Kim, I mean, like, just _wide_ awake, too many coffees and Big Gulps, I guess—” a weak laugh “—wow, you were so right about that, but I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to sleep and anyway I just couldn’t face stopping in some shitty motel and bunking with all the rats and the cockroaches, so I just kept driving and driving…and driving.” 

He breathes out now, shaky and uneven, still staring at Kim’s chin and not her eyes. “So eventually I figured we could…maybe…take another little detour.” Another little detour: just to the off-brand Paul Bunyan. Just to see Lincoln’s Tomb. Just a couple of root beers with Mark Twain before we get back on the road. 

Just a quick stop in your hometown, Kim. It’s only a little out of our way. 

Kim rubs her forefinger over her lips, looking away and nodding. Her gaze flicks in the direction of the Willa Cather sign. The ancient grasses ripple. She lowers her hand. The silence feels thick in the air, thick and thicker, and then: “Okay.”

Jimmy’s heart thuds. “Yeah?”

She nods again. “Yes, Jimmy,” she says. She glances down at her feet and frowns. Opens the glove box. She shifts aside a couple of scrunched-up Jays wrappers with a crack of plastic, then closes the glove box again. She turns back to him. “Do you have the road atlas somewhere, then?” 

It’s in the driver’s door pocket. Jimmy fishes it out and hands it over.

Kim flicks to a previous page. Her careful blue pen line from yesterday runs across the map, splitting through that section of Kansas. She turns another page and the route vanishes again. “Well, there’s no point in doubling back to Wichita now,” she says, and she spins the map book sideways. “But we can still make it to Albuquerque by tomorrow. We’ll have to stop somewhere soon for a payphone so I can call in with HHM, but we should definitely go through—”

“Kim.”

Her gaze cuts to him, eyes pale. “Will you be able to drive at all? You said you haven’t slept. I can handle most of it, but you should probably nap, if you can, because you might need to take over later. And we should probably, we should…” And she stares down, chewing at the nail on her forefinger as she studies the page in the road atlas. It’s turned to somewhere in Colorado. Through the window behind her, the grasses sway. They seem to give off an orange light. 

He says her name again, half hummed this time: “Kim?” 

“…should eat on the road,” Kim finally continues, her voice slower and softer now, still chewing her nail. She’s nodding again, a small movement that builds and builds. “Yes, eat on the road. I could use a coffee first, and I know you probably could, too, unless you want to sleep right now. It’s about ten hours if we only stop for gas.” She frowns, and out her window the prairie shifts. “Actually, if we make it before dark, I can probably head into the office for a couple of hours of work tonight, start to make up for the lost time…” 

He turns his torso toward her, his fingers curling around the edge of the steering wheel. “I’m sorry, Kim,” he says, into the thoughtful quiet. “I should have asked you first.”

She lowers her hand from her mouth. Finally faces him again. The road atlas hangs open on her lap. “Jimmy,” she says flatly. “You drove here through the night from Lawrence, Kansas—” an inhale “—and _now_ you think maybe you should have asked?” 

He says, weakly, “Yeah?”

She actually chuckles at that, short and dry. She looks back down at the map. 

“It’s just…” Jimmy huffs out a breath. “It’s just we were kind of right here.” There’s another heavy silence. “Or I guess not _right_ _here_ right here, but we were close. And it’s kinda like how you just bought that extra plane ticket, right? You were there, and I—” He cuts himself short of saying what he was about to say. _Needed you_. He can hear the unspoken words in the silence anyway. 

Kim’s fingers flex slightly on the road atlas. 

Jimmy rubs at his sore lips, then exhales. “Anyway, I kept thinking about what you said back in Cicero, and I thought that maybe you might like—” and his voice comes, suddenly, softer “—I thought you might like to _see_ it again.” 

And again her fingers flex. 

Still using the strange hushed tone, Jimmy adds, “To see it’s still here for you, too, you know?”

Kim furrows her nose a little and looks down. There’s the click of a swallow. 

And around them the grasses sway over the rippling prairie. The disc of the sun glows yellow, warm and warmer through the windshield. But Jimmy just watches Kim, the soft curve of her face, her solemn eyes. He murmurs, “How long’s it been?” 

Another click of a swallow, then Kim angles her head to stare off at the Willa Cather sign. To stare past it, maybe, to where the bronze-green grasses go on and on beneath the dawn. She says, finally, “Five years.” 

Five years, Jimmy thinks. Five years ago, he was living in a dark basement apartment, the cold pressing against the thin windows, the cold spilling down to the floor, sensing the hard cement beneath the thin carpet and finding a home there, and never leaving. 

The cold sensed a home in his bones, too, somehow. 

“I mean…” Jimmy starts, turning away so that he can’t see her anymore, so he just sees the unfolding land that spreads hugely around them, reaching out in glints of yellows and bronzes to the horizon. “It’s like…a galaxy of wildflowers.” A sideways glance and a grin. “I didn’t make that up; I read that in a _National Geographic_ once. There was a full page spread. I forgot until earlier. Kinda makes sense though, huh?”

Kim’s face is unmoving, soft in the dawn. In the clean light, it’s easier than normal to see the swipes of shadows beneath her eyes, the pale lines at their corners. 

“Hey,” he says quietly. He shifts in the seat again, inching closer. “So maybe you don’t have some stupid old stickers on your ceiling, but, hell, Kim, you’ve got this.” He waves a hand to the fields, to the ancient grasses rippling in ribbons like folded paper, to the wine-colored buds. Old and unbroken. “This is here.” 

And the wind brushes the tops of the fields, flickering through the wildflowers. He can imagine it running over Kim, running through her hair, some movement around the stationary figure she makes right now in the passenger seat. 

Because Jimmy can almost feel the wind on his skin, too, here inside the warming car. He murmurs, “Like how we went to see Pop’s old shop. You know, I hadn’t been there since…God, I don’t know how long it’d been, Kim.” He rubs his hand against the thin fabric of his t-shirt. “But seeing it again…” A long exhale. “It was kinda like the old place was layered on top of the new. Like the old thing was still there, even though it had changed so much.” He turns back to her, bright in the car. “For me it was still there, anyway, and for _you_ it was there, even though you’d never seen it.” 

She looks to him now. Her eyes are strange and pale. 

Jimmy lifts his hand from the steering wheel and then drops it again. “And so maybe you could show me the old things that are still here, even if they’re gone.” He chuckles softly. “Does that make sense? That doesn’t make sense.” He huffs. “But, hell, Kim—” and another waved hand “—show me the famous bowling alley, show me the Willa Cather sign your mom thought was for diet pills, show me the old diner, show me the world’s largest round barn or whatever the shit that one was—” 

“Jesus, Jimmy,” Kim says, in a strangled voice, shaking her head. “How do you remember all that?”

He just looks away. The distant sky is cloudless, softening to a pale blue with the golden light. The grasses ripple enormously. 

And he thinks, then, with these waving grasses, of Kim’s hand in his hair, of his head on her lap. Little pieces of a hazy and drunken memory that feel almost more precious to him than any other memory he has of the two of them. Her voice reading to him about Red Cloud, or a fictional Red Cloud, at least. He can hear that voice again now as he looks out at the prairie, can hear the warm tone of it, and he can feel her fingers threading through his hair, her nails tracing over his scalp… 

It all makes him think of those early days of their friendship and more-than-friendship, back when he had felt the need to always be around her and stick close, like she was grounding him, like together they made one tightly-wound thing. 

Remembering that old feeling brings with it another thought, one that he hasn’t had in a long time: that Kim was put in Albuquerque for him. That she was waiting in the mailroom so that when he got there he would have somebody. And with the thought, as always, comes its opposite: that really he was brought there for her. That it was all for her. 

He thinks now maybe it could be both. 

And then he hears a click. In the passenger seat, Kim’s letting go of her now-buckled seat belt. She tilts her head at him, eyes glittering. 

“Yeah?” he says, a soft echo of earlier. 

And she nods. It’s a fragment of a thing, like a glint of light on glass.

So he cranks the ignition. As they pull away from the rest area, the old Volvo hums, warm and steady on the road to Red Cloud.

* * *

They haven’t made it far along the narrow interstate before the rippling grasses begin to make room for speckled clusters of trees. The green and orange treetops are at road-level, their trunks disappearing down into deep cuts in the land, into the gully of a snaking river. The trees look as ancient as the prairie grass, wind-worn and hardy, and they ripple in the same wind, too, so rhythmic he can almost hear them rustling. 

He and Kim cross the river itself soon after: a yellow-green stream with marshy banks that are wide and flat like a flood plain. As they pass above the water, Kim twists to watch it go by, a controlled movement to match the speed of the car. When the river’s behind them, she faces forward again. 

It’s quiet in the car, or as quiet as the old thing gets, anyway. The body creaks and rattles on its frame. 

“Do you want…” Jimmy starts, and he waves a hand vaguely toward the glove box, where a dozen cassettes are by now all jumbled in the wrong cases—mostly his doing. 

But Kim just shakes her head. 

Buildings appear in the distance: first one, then several, blinking up above the low treetops. They’re strange, angular things, grain elevators linked with high metal bridges and beams. The brutal structures glint with dew and drop spiked shadows that flicker over the car as Jimmy drives through them. 

Beyond the grain elevators, the road reaches an overgrown rail yard. There’s a light on in one of the buildings already, industrial and fluorescent, but the whole place just feels disused. The sorting tracks are latticed with weeds, and, along the roadside, the dirt is cut and scuffed, heaped in piles on the shoulder. It looks like a job started and then abandoned. 

Jimmy suddenly hears Kim’s voice from a long time ago: _It’s an old railroad town_. It doesn’t seem like many trains come through here now. 

The main line, at least, is gleaming. In the slow seconds as Jimmy approaches the level crossing, he can see the tracks disappear into the distance, east and west. To the west, the tracks stretch off in perfect straightness past an old-fashioned red-walled depot, and to the east there’s nothing. The line just goes vanishingly on—on and on toward all the places they’ve just been. 

On the other side of the tracks, the town opens up. To the left of the road, scattered houses appear. They’re small and look like they were built a hundred years ago, built when the trains ran every hour, when the train-cars carried people and goods off into the cities and carried money back. Here, the prairie is struggling, the wildflowers lost beneath crops or hard-looking short grasses or the patchwork earth of empty lots; though in the empty lots, at least, some wine-colored wildness is starting to take hold once again. 

As they pass a side road, again Kim’s head tracks something, matching the movement of the car to follow some spot out near the houses. He can tell from the pace of her turn that it’s somewhere far off. After the spot has passed, she faces forward again, wordlessly. 

Another river-side grove of trees emerges on the right, and Jimmy hums. “You know, I didn’t expect so many trees,” he says softly.

She makes a short little sound, curious.

“I guess I don’t know what I expected,” he adds eventually, shrugging with one shoulder. “Less trees.” 

Soon, the trees grow even denser, and they rise from their river gullies, finding purchase in the brown earth, stretching toward the sky. The houses draw together in the shadows beneath them. There are no fences between the yards here, and it all feels temporary; temporary houses on temporary squares of land, with no way to tell one square from another except for the color of the grass or the condition of the yard, and if the houses weren’t so old Jimmy might almost think this was a town ready to be packed up tomorrow and vanished. A traveling town. 

The road itself feels impermanent, too. It bleeds without sidewalks into the dirt and into the yards, into the short grass that’s struggling to endure. Grey dust peeks through the patchy green threads, stubborn and unstoppable. In some places the dust streaks over the surface of the road here, too, and in other places the cement cracks and he can see the dry earth beneath. Either way, the dust is winning. 

Jimmy steers around one of these cracks in the road, and when he looks ahead again, they’re approaching a red-brick building, something so solid and permanent it feels out of place. It could almost have come from Cicero, could fit right in on Cermak, all steep walls and high glass windows and an iron roof. After everything else, it feels eerily familiar, feels like he’s seen it before. 

Kim’s head tracks this building, too. Jimmy slows until he’s stopped right alongside it, the tires creaking as he pulls up next to the curb. 

The place is quiet and still. Along one wall, there’s a huge gravel parking lot, empty of cars. On the far side of the parking lot are the backs of smaller buildings, with air-conditioning units fastened to the walls, with red doors up sloping ramps. In the entrance of the lot stands one of those signs with the changeable black letters. MAY 19 LAST DAY, it says, and then, at the bottom, RED CLOUD K-12 NE US. 

Kim studies the place for a long time. She doesn’t say anything.

Jimmy presses his lips together to hold his own words inside, and he waits, and waits, until a lone car arrives at the intersection, and it turns slowly and then passes them, and as if the sound of it rumbling by was what Kim was waiting for, she faces forward again and says nothing. 

He glances once more at the school, at the brick building and the enormous empty parking lot, and then he drives. He shifts into third gear too early and the car groans and struggles to find any speed, but he pushes on, rolling slowly through the empty streets until the revs catch up. 

Past the school, they reach more borderless houses. Lights are on in some windows now, and the low sun casts blue shadows through the patchwork yards, extending coolly from gnarled trees and the worn-down cars in the drives. 

But Jimmy keeps most of his attention on Kim. The next time her head turns to follow something, he slows for that, too—slows at another standalone building. This one is more cement than brick. The front says they open at nine o’clock, still a couple of hours yet. It’s a farmers’ co-op, and the sign for it is layered over a piece of wall where he can see, through the shadows left by the sun, faint traces of and older lettering that was once beneath. He can’t quite make out what it says. 

He hears Kim swallow, but she still offers no words. And when she faces forward, he drives on again. 

Soon, the houses become wealthier-looking: multi-storied with tidy weatherboards and sloping roofs and elaborate porches. They still sit on the same worn and patchy grass, though, the hard-won grass that seems to want to peel away from the greying dirt and free the dust beneath. 

The next time Kim’s head turns, he stops again, but he can’t exactly tell what she’s looking at. It’s an empty lot. There’s a tree and a telephone line. A gravel road running parallel on the other side, and then nothing: just tough grasses and more distant trees and then the horizon. 

Yet she watches it for longer than the others, turned away from him. He can only see the back of her head and her hair, tangled from sleeping scrunched up in the passenger seat all night. Thick threads of blonde swirling one over the other, riverlike. 

The threads churn when she finally does face forward. He looks dartingly to her eyes, to the one eye he can see with her face in sharp profile, anyway. There’s no expression in it. 

And he drives on. More empty lots, and more houses, too. More houses than Jimmy expected at all, really—and it’s somehow too many and also not enough. Because even with all of this, all these borderless streets, he knows the whole town is still gone in the flicker of a train window, gone in as much time as it takes to glance away as you raced over the level crossing. He thinks of riding the L into Chicago, and staring out at all the houses and backs of houses and apartment blocks and windows and lives. So many you could never see them all. 

Jimmy slows, and he makes a turn. All at once, like the appearance of the school, more red-brick buildings pop up, and again they seem too substantial for the surrounding town. A block here has white cornices and ornamentation, expensive flourishes from hundreds of years ago. Along the block are terraced shops with old-fashioned awnings. Half of them have boarded-up windows, and the other half have such ancient and sun-beaten signs he can tell that nothing about them has changed for years.

The cement road turns to brick here, too, and it grows wide and sprawling, wide enough for four lanes of traffic, the main street of a much bigger town. The bricks are interlaced and uneven and human, and the car grumbles over them. The street is lined with green lampposts that hold their lights in angular glass cages.

“Oh,” Kim says suddenly. “They changed it.”

With the jolt of her words, Jimmy stops, there in the street. There’s no one around. No cars behind him on the road, nobody walking. He glances at the half-empty storefronts, at the brick buildings. “Changed what?”

Kim points outward to where one narrow building rises a dozen feet taller than the others—almost like a clock tower, though there’s no clock. On its side, the part that climbs above the other roofs, there’s a curling mural of a scroll. It says, _Willa Cather, State Historic Site_. 

Jimmy peers up through the windshield. The paint is dark and fresh, the wall behind it covered over in white. A gleaming canvas. 

“It used to be…” Kim says, and then she makes a soft sound. “I can’t remember.”

Jimmy looks from the mural. Kim’s lips are folded together. A glass-shelled lamppost glows through the passenger window. The light inside it flicks off, suddenly, in the stillness. Some automatic timer going. The others down the street follow, until it’s just the car headlights and the wash of early morning. 

Kim releases her lips. “I just know it looks different now,” she says, eventually, her voice low and thoughtful. She leans a little forward again, and then sits back. “Maybe there used to be a sun or something.”

Jimmy nods. He says, “A sun sounds nice.” 

Kim makes a humming noise. He can’t tell if it’s agreement or disagreement. 

“Hey,” he says. He waits for her to look to him, and then he smiles. He unbuckles his seat belt, opens his door, and hops out. The morning air is cool in the shadowed line between the rundown shops, and the road is uneven beneath his feet, the bricks laid at off angles. There’s a smell in the air of cut grass and of fires burning. He walks forward, leaving the Volvo behind him, parked up in the middle of the road. 

A door opens, and then: “Jimmy?” Kim stands next to the car with her hand on the roof, hair drifting above her shoulders. 

“C’mere!” he says, waving and continuing on. He passes an old store, sewing supplies and undressed mannequins, and all darkness and dust inside, and the painted letters on the glass window cracking. He stops on the sidewalk opposite the building with the Willa Cather mural, and then he grins and looks up at it and— “Oh.” His grin drops. 

Kim’s figure breaks through the pale cones of the headlights. Her blouse is untucked from her jeans and open over a plain grey camisole. Her hair catches the headlights in bright threads. After a pause, she continues forward, her footsteps quiet over the uneven bricks, and then she reaches his side. She stares over in the same direction, then looks to him and quirks an eyebrow. "What?"

Jimmy chuckles and shakes his head. “I don’t want to say.”

“Jimmy,” she says, somber. “What?” 

“Okay,” he says, more huff than fully-formed word. He points loosely across the street. “I thought we were going to be able to see the sun.” When Kim remains quiet, and he adds, “Like, up there where the mural is.”

More silence. When Jimmy glances back down to her, Kim’s wearing a barely-disguised smile. 

And he hurriedly says, “I meant the _real_ sun.”

“I know that,” she says warmly, her eyes twinkling. And then: “What, over the buildings, Jimmy? Standing here in the shade?”

“Okay, shut up,” he says, looking away from her again. “Whatever. I don’t…” He frowns again. The headlights of the car catch his eyes, flaring, and he looks to it. The green Volvo seems tiny in the middle of the wide brick street. It’s dusty, the windshield streaked with bugs and dirt. 

As he walks back over, his unfinished sentence still hanging there on the sidewalk, Kim makes a questioning sound, not quite a word. 

Jimmy pats a hand to the roof of the sedan and trails his fingertips over the paint, moving around to the back of it. He wedges a knee onto the trunk and then climbs up. Scrambles the rest of the way onto the roof, leaving smudges in the dust and grime. The metal bucks a little under his weight, but he finds his balance and stands staring again at the patch of sky near the Willa Cather sign. The wind rises and he wipes the dust off his hands with the front of his jeans. 

Beneath his feet, the car shifts. Kim’s climbing up on to the trunk, now too. He holds out a hand, but she doesn’t take it, just clambers up onto the roof, arms shifting for balance as she finds her feet, briefly leaning on his shoulder for support. She steadies herself and turns. Stands side by side with him, looking up exactly where he had been looking. The patch of empty sky. 

The sleeves of his t-shirt flutter, and he stares at the blue space next to the mural. “You know,” he murmured, “if we waited long enough, the sun’d be right there. It would be perfect.”

She doesn’t say anything to that. Her open blouse flutters, too, cream and purple. There’s just the sound of that and the thoughtful weight of her silence. 

“I mean, I can maybe already see, like, the glow—” he says eventually, waving a hand down where the rising sun is obscured by the red brick buildings. 

Kim makes a soft noise. She doesn’t say anything for a long time, and then, just above a murmur, “I can _definitely_ see the glow.” 

He looks down to her. 

She’s in shadow, of course she is, and her eyes are narrow as she studies the unglowing sky. His sleeves flutter again, and so does her blouse, and her hair blows forward over her chin. She brushes it back, and then she turns to him. Freezes for a moment and then chuckles. “What?” 

He says, “Show me where you used to watch storms.”

* * *

The sound is what he notices most. The sound of the wind on the tall grasses, and on the wildflowers, and somehow even the sound of the wind itself, too. The rush and rustle of it all around them, like paper crinkling or waves coming in or steady breathing. 

They’re out on the prairie again, just a little past where Jimmy had first stopped the car. This time, they pulled over in a fully-paved rest area. There was another Willa Cather sign, this one with a little biography. It was joined by a couple of others about the prairie preservation efforts, and some photographs of the wildlife and flora. 

And, some dozen feet out in the grasses, a bench. 

Jimmy runs his hand over the wood next to his right knee. It’s smooth and varnished. The signs and the car and the interstate are all at his back, silent and vanishing. Already forgotten. It’s just the two of them on the bench in the ocean of grass. 

The sun is higher now than earlier, and it’s at their back too, spilling light down onto the world before them. The colors are vibrant: vermilion and indigo and ultramarine and all the other words he used to read in the pages of a _National Geographic_ or on tubes of paint in school. The whole land is cracked like paint, really, shattered shards of ocher and umber. 

And the brushstroke grasses swell with the wind.

“You know, there wasn’t a bench here, then,” Kim murmurs. “This is new, too.” She’s holding a packet of cigarettes, though she hasn’t lit one yet. She stares off distantly. “I mean, it’s not exactly where I would sit back then either, but…” 

He nods slowly. Follows her gaze. “Do you _want_ to sit exactly where you’d sit?”

Kim shakes her head. “No,” she says, eventually. “This is better.” 

Jimmy tries to catch her eye but he can’t. He says lightly, “Yeah, the ground over there’s probably full of like, smelly old worms and stuff, anyway.”

She snorts but doesn’t look to him. Just stares off, outwards. 

The sky over the land is big and blue, mottled with clouds. It’s hard to imagine it swelling with storms, hard to imagine it darkening to a bruise and beating the land and the distant town with rain. He tilts his head, and says, “You really came out all this way when you were a kid?” 

Her grip tightens on the packet of cigarettes, cardboard crinkling. 

“How long’d that take?” he murmurs. 

There’s the tap of her thumb on the packet, a little arrhythmic beat. “Couple of hours,” she says eventually. “Less if I ran.” The tapping starts again, then gradually slows. “Sometimes I’d stay so long I had to race the weather back. Me against the storm.”

Jimmy chuckles. “Well, I bet you won.”

She looks at him and shrugs. “Sometimes,” she says. “Sometimes I didn’t.” And then her stare returns to where the prairie spills over the horizon, to where the storms must have arrived, as enormous as mountains out there along the skyline. 

He can’t even imagine it, not really. He tries to stitch the idea with the reality before him and he can’t. Distantly, some vulture or other carrion bird cuts serpentine shapes through the sky, so high above the prairie it seems impossible. It winds like a river through the blue, and with each turn it reveals its wingspan in perfect silhouette, back and forth. 

Eventually, Kim opens her packet of cigarettes with a crinkle of cardboard that’s almost lost in the rush of the wind-blown grass. She taps out a smoke and holds it, unlit, staring outwards, like she’s still seeing those mountainous old storms. The clouds today are high above and bright white. They cast shadows that skim over the folded landscape, gliding through the gullies and staining the prairie briefly blue. 

The cloud shadows brush the tops of the grasses like a hand, rippling.

The whole thing is just one great movement, Jimmy thinks, one great shifting thing, and all the grasses are a part of it, and all the flowers are a part of it, and all of it is moving, all at once. 

There’s the snap of a lighter, and Kim ignites her cigarette. She takes a drag and holds it in for a long time and then exhales through barely-parted lips, the smoke curling. She wedges the cigarette between her fingers and stares off again. 

The cloud shadows drive past them, darkening and then illuminating the bright dots of petals, the galaxy of wildflowers. 

“How old were you when your dad died?” she says, suddenly. 

It takes him a moment to really hear the question. He knows the answer automatically, as instinctive as breathing, but it still takes a while before he can say, “Just turned nineteen.” 

She glances to him. Her eyes hold his, unreadable, and then she passes him the cigarette. 

He lifts it to his mouth. Blows out smoke to drift away with the wind and the shadows and the grasses. Exhales again, and closes his eyes for a moment. The darkness of his eyelids is warm. He opens them again and passes the cigarette back to her, and says, “Why’d you ask?”

Kim just shrugs. She holds the cigarette near her mouth but doesn’t smoke it, just keeps her hand there for a long while. A piece of white ash falls from the end and is lost to the wind. Kim doesn’t notice. Her eyes are fixed on the horizon, on the memories of storms, maybe. Eventually, she says plainly, “My dad left when I was young.” 

Jimmy’s fingers tighten around the edge of the bench. He doesn’t want to move in case he breaks this new moment, this tentative step out onto the ice. He can already hear the sheet cracking beneath the weight. 

Kim looks to him then, and she shakes her head, reading something else in his face. “Nothing like that,” she says. “He just left. He didn’t say anything.” A scoff. “Of course he didn’t say anything.” She does take a drag now, and she holds it in her lungs for long enough that Jimmy can almost feel the burn of it himself. And, smoke entwining with her next words, she says, “Everyone leaves Red Cloud.” She ashes the cigarette neatly. “Hell, even Mom moved to Lincoln like ten years ago.” A bitter laugh. “She got out before me.” 

With a brief tug, Jimmy’s thoughts return to his duffel bag in the car, where there’s a pamphlet about blood cancer that he hasn’t read, that he hasn’t told Kim about yet even though he said he would. A hospital pamphlet tucked in there with the stupid law school letters. He shakes his head to get those thoughts out, and he just watches the silhouetted carrion bird circle higher and higher, a faint and elegant dot against the clean bright sky. 

He thinks, instead, of Kim as a child, walking two hours to sit here on the prairie among the mottled land, the grasses streaked with paintbrush strokes in the direction of the driving wind. He wonders if she still came to this spot in the years right before she left for Albuquerque, in the years when maybe it was just Kim here alone, just her and this place and the wind and the dust and the sun. 

Kim lifts her cigarette to her lips and has another long drag, and then she exhales in snaking threads. As they vanish on the wind, she says, “He was so still.”

Jimmy flexes his hands around the edge of the bench again, pressing the pads of his fingertips against the hard surface. The scent of the tobacco hovers, sharp and woody. 

And, amid the rush of the grasses, Kim continues: “He would sit there in the living room every night with the TV going, and him not moving. A drink in his hand. _Just_ _one_.” She says the last in an unfamiliar tone, like she’s imitating somebody. She shakes her head. “It didn’t matter where it was, which house, which room. If it was him and a TV, it was still. Always.” The next words come like she’s saying them from far away, short and precise: “And, if I sat with him, I got to be still, too.” 

A change, now, in the wind. The prairie turns. It’s like he can see the texture of the wind itself, the visible shape of it against the blades of the grass and the heads of the wildflowers, all bowing to make room as it goes by. A curl here and a twist there, little tornadoes where the grasses turn back to face each other. 

Kim shifts. The side of her hand touches his on the bench. She leaves it there, warm and firm, and gestures with the other one, the cigarette wedged in it. “All of this,” she says, and she lowers the hand. “All of this, and he was the only still thing. He just sat there and the TV flickered and it seemed like nothing could touch him, like nothing could ever touch him.” 

Jimmy looks down at their hands on the bench, at Kim’s so small beside his. 

She gives a soft and biting laugh. “And I guess nothing really did.” Her head turns, and he meets her eyes. She holds out the cigarette again.

He takes it with his free hand and has a long drag. Her eyes soften as they cling to his, her brows twisting. The smoke is warm in his lungs as he holds her gaze. And he exhales slowly, breath vanishing to the wind.

Kim reaches toward him and takes the cigarette back right from his mouth, her fingers brushing his lips. His jaw hangs open as she shifts the cigarette to her own lips and puffs, and then he swallows and turns away. 

The carrion bird is gone now, or at least he’s lost track of it. His lungs burn and he can still feel her lingering touch.

The wind turns again. Smoke curls in ribbons past him as Kim exhales, and the prairie rustles and churns, and everywhere he looks there’s movement, the clouds rushing above and the grasses stirring. A galaxy of wildflowers and every star leaving a glowing trail. 

Kim’s hand shifts next to his, warm. “I always feel it when I sit here,” she murmurs, barely audible, like she’s hoping the wind will take her words away like the smoke. 

He rubs a finger over his mouth and turns to her. 

She meets his gaze and smiles, shaking her head. “I’ve always felt it here. That old anger.” It’s her turn to stare down at their side-by-side hands now. He feels her pinky shift, just a little. Her hair rises in rivers past her chin. “It’s like it’s buried in the soil here, rooted way down deep. Deep enough to survive the storms. And the droughts.” 

He can see her chest rising and falling now. More movement, more churning. 

She folds in her lips. Shifts her hand away from his and looks back out to the heaving grasses. She murmurs, “And I think we can feel it because it’s always shaking down there, and it’s always shaking down there because it wants to get out.” She looks to him again. “You can feel it, too, right?”

Around him the prairie seethes, like the world breathing. The shadows of the clouds race by, surging and flowing with the ribbons of sheet-iron. He nods. He can feel it. The rush of the land. 

“It wasn’t him or her, you know,” she says, so soft. “It was me. I was the angry one. It was me.”

He inhales sharply. It’s a sound lost to the lash of the ancient grasses that stretch so golden out to the creased horizon. A sound lost to the whip of the wine-red wildflowers and the pale green buds and the yellow glow of the land, all bright and cracked in blistering lines like paint, like old paint peeling up to reveal the older layers beneath, peeling up to reveal all the lost things and all the years of dust and cigarette smoke caught in there, and always somewhere beneath it the roots of the ancient prairie grasses that endure year after year through everything. 

When he looks back to Kim, after a long time, she’s staring at the cigarette between her fingers. Studying the burning end. She continues watching it as she speaks. “Sometimes, Jimmy,” she says, “sometimes it’s not worth looking back.” Another long stretch of rushing wind, and then: “Sometimes it doesn’t deserve it.”

And she drops the cigarette to the dry dirt. It glows for a second, orange and bright, then she crushes it beneath her sneaker. When she lifts her sole away, the end is driven into the soil. They both watch it for a long time. Nothing dry in the land catches. 

“No looking back, huh?” Jimmy says, tearing his eyes away from the cigarette butt. He waits for Kim to look to him, and then he says, “Don’t want to turn into a pillar of salt?”

Kim gives a half smile, her head tilting. “Nobody wants to be a pillar of salt, Jimmy,” she says. Her eyes catch his, blue and bronze and golden. “Let’s go, Catholic boy. We should have gone an hour ago.” 

“So we push the speed limit,” he says, lightly, falling back into easy words. “We’ll make it. My father was a brick, remember?” He finds her gaze again and chuckles. “Heavy on the gas.” 

Kim laughs quietly and shakes her head. She claps her hands down on the bench once, definitively, then stands. She frowns down at him. “Do you want to drive first, or should I?”

Jimmy squints upwards. The clouds pour around her, one great stream, and the prairie flowing with it. He says, “You can drive.”

She holds out a hand and he takes it, pulling himself upright with her help.

They turn and head back to the car, back to the interstate and the hum of tires on cement. It feels like they’re moving with everything now, too; moving with the ancient grasses and the wildflowers; moving with the cloud shadows; moving with the driving wind as it carries them westward back home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> and extra thanks to @drjholtzmann for all the red cloud convos that found their way into this one ♥️♥️♥️


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